


Blood Like Ice

by AndreaChristoph



Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Romance, Suspense, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaChristoph/pseuds/AndreaChristoph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Occult warfare spanning centuries resulted in the near genocide of the Order of the Lux Veritatis and Nephilim race, but they share a powerful secret that could ultimately save or destroy them both. Lara Croft holds the key to uncovering the truth, a truth far more complex than she first believed. The hardest choice, of life and death, is hers alone to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_Tomb Raider © Square Enix Ltd._

* * *

  
_"To live and move among men, the heart must break or harden."  
\- Sébastien R.N. Chamfort_

* * *

Ravensbrück, Northern Germany - December 1944

Clearly the experiment had not gone well.

Joachim placed a hand on the glass cocoon, his palm warmed even through the leather of his glove, and stared in silence at the creature suspended inside. It faced him with blind, half-dead eyes that darted slowly around as if struggling to focus. It was a disfigured mess, body parts and features nowhere they should be, like someone had torn the body apart and put it back together blindfolded. As he watched, the creature spasmed once, the mouth moving in silent screams, before the heart rate monitor dwindled to a single tone.

Joachim pounded a fist on the glass and whipped around to face the team of scientists behind him. Each was busy scribbling their own rapid notes regarding the experiment, all looking the part of one who is avoiding being noticed at all costs. They were worried, perhaps even afraid. They had good cause to be.

And behind them all stood Luther Rouzic, uniform impeccable and standing as stock-straight as ever. His one good eye met Joachim's, and to Rouzic's credit, he didn't flinch away from his gaze.

"All of you, out. Rouzic, to me."

Without any hesitation his team filtered towards the exits, clearly trying to maintain a pretense of calm. Soon he was left alone with Rouzic, who made his way calmly to Joachim's side and stood with hands clasped behind his back and face impassive.

"You told me this attempt would work," Joachim murmured, "and yet I find this dead monster before me. Is this how you show thanks for the gifts I have given you?"

"Of course not, my lord, I wish only to serve you well. Unfortunately, the scope of these experiments is clearly not part of the skillset that these sorry excuses for scientists claim to possess."

"Clearly." Despite his distaste for the outright cruelty displayed by many of the Nazi men and women under his command, their horrific acts overshadowed the many experiments he undertook in their midst and gave him a place to stay beneath the radar of the Lux Veritatis. They were the perfect decoy. Still, every day he was amazed at what they were willing to perform in the name of science, and how little they ultimately accomplished with their efforts. The genocide hit far closer to home than he was comfortable with.

"Explain what happened," Joachim instructed Rouzic, rounding the cocoon to examine the creature from another angle. Rouzic retrieved one of the abandoned clipboards nearby, scanned it quickly, and then cleared his throat.

"In every experiment we have attempted thus far, the Watcher's DNA has begun to decompose the moment it is removed from the host." He flipped a few pages back in the log. "Apparently the Proto-Nephilim was incompatible from the start with the decaying sample of DNA we introduced, and this caused numerous genetic defects. Soon after it went through a period of growth and death simultaneously- almost a cancer, if you will. The eyes were blind, the heart growing in the pelvic cavity, so on and so forth." He set the clipboard down. "In other words, even without the defects it likely would have been brain-dead once taken out of stasis."

Joachim took a step back from the cocoon and again fixed his aide with a glare. "How many attempts has it been now, Rouzic?"

"Several, my lord, but this one was close. It possesses tangible Nephilic characteristics despite it's deformity; the wing bones here-" He gestured vaguely somewhere near the hips. "-and the epidermal runes that you can see here, on the neck."

"Close is not enough, Rouzic, and I'm fast running out of patience." He eyed the specimen with disgust. "This is unacceptable. They think they are the most brilliant minds of these past centuries, and yet humans still perform like simpleton apes. I require solutions, _not_ failures."

Rouzic hesitated. "I have…one theory, my lord." Joachim was silent, and Rouzic took it as a sign to continue. "Think back to your own origins. The union of the Grigori with humans- a union that introduced the next step in evolution for an inferior race. Nothing ill came of this union, not a single defective offspring. The Nephilim are perfect."

"Where is this going?" Joachim asked, eyes narrowing.

"All of our experiments thus far have been attempts at manufacturing a hybrid, to force that natural evolution on a creature we have constructed. What if we gave nature a chance instead?"

Realizing the implication of Rouzic's words, Joachim smiled. "In utero."

"Precisely, my lord."

"How do you propose it be done, if the DNA decays the moment it is removed from the Grigori?"

Rouzic launched into a detailed explanation of his proposed theory. Most of it did not interest Joachim, and he found his mind wandering. The Watcher they held in stasis was deteriorating fast, a combination of the stress the experiments had placed it under and imperfection taking its toll. Soon it would be of no more use than any other mortal human. Once that happened, he would need to secure another specimen.

"One other thing, my lord. Our Cabal agents in the field have finally reported back with news on the order of the Lux Veritatis."

Drawn out of his reverie, Joachim looked intently at Rouzic. "And?"

"We've managed to track down a large settlement of them. They have an outpost in a run down castle in the South- Kriegler, I believe was the name. From all reports, I have reason to suspect this is where they have chosen to hold the Black Alchemist captive."

_It was only a matter of time until I found him._ "How serendipitous. If your theory results in a viable Proto-Nephilim, we'll have two pieces of the puzzle in our grasp."

Rouzic looked pleased with himself. "With your permission, my lord, I can have our agents infiltrate the castle and-"

"No," Joachim said immediately. "That will lead the order directly to my doorstep and Eckhardt along with them. Neither party must know who I am nor where I am. Do you understand, Rouzic?"

From the look on his face, Rouzic did not. He seemed unable to comprehend why his illustrious master would prefer to stay hidden. Still, he nodded.

"We're in the midst of a war," Joachim continued, "so it would not go amiss were German bombers to target an Allied outpost that we've discovered in the South, would it?"

Realization blossomed in Rouzic's good eye. He smiled, his face twisted by the scars that cut across it. "Of course, my lord. I shall see it is done."

Joachim smoothed a hand across his blonde hair and placed his SS officer's cap back on. "One final thing. I will need a team- our own Cabal agents, not Nazi –to take with me to Turkey." Rouzic opened his mouth to question, but Joachim silenced him with a gesture. "Reconnaissance, nothing more. It will be clear in due time."

"And Eckhardt?" Rouzic asked, tentatively.

"Do not interfere with him. He will likely attempt to seize control of the Cabal once more, but he must be allowed to play his part or we will gain nothing from him." He took a step closer to Rouzic, eyeing the two long scars down his cheek- scars that Joachim had inflicted as a lesson to him. "But if you forget for even a moment who you answer to, I will strip you of everything I have given and leave you to rot."

Rouzic nodded. Rather than fear, his gaze held only reverence. It looked to Joachim a bit like a dumb animal, unaware of being led to the slaughter. "It shall be done, my lord," Rouzic murmured, the excitement in his voice barely contained.

Once Rouzic was gone, Joachim relaxed and allowed his appearance to waver for a moment, to lose the perfect façade he upheld in every waking moment of his life. Ridges and scars appeared on his jaw, markings of his lineage intertwined with the large wounds that cut a path through his mouth and black eyes, still painful even centuries later. Joachim shook his head, not allowing the memories to come unbidden, and in that brief second he returned to Herr Richard Karel and the vision of Aryan purity that these Nazis around him valued so deeply.

And then he laughed.


	2. The Truth

"Battle not with monsters,  
lest ye become a monster  
And if you gaze into the abyss  
the abyss gazes into you"  
 _-Friedrich Nietzsche_  
  


* * *

A pool of blood spread across the floor.

Letting out a low moan, Pieter van Eckhardt stumbled into a pillar and fell to his knees, hands scrambling at the smooth metal in an attempt to remain upright. Age- his true age, having been stripped of his immortality -was catching up to him at a rapid pace, tissue breaking down as five long centuries finally took their toll. His skin had broken in places, wounds that he didn't seem to notice, and his irises clouded over as his sight failed.

Still, he would not die.  He would maintain a shred of his immortality until the moment he was pierced with the final shard- the shard that Lara Croft held tight at her side.

Never in her life had she felt a rage as potent as in that moment, so strong it threatened to tear itself out of her in a feral growl. Her body tired and worn, she felt as if she'd collapse any second, and yet there was von Croy's murderer at her mercy, kneeling as if begging for his life.  She had no mercy left to give.

Face contorted in anger and hate, she strode forward, the hand holding the shard wheeling back to strike. Her eyes were focused on one point- the center of his forehead, the tip of the arrow.  His end.

The shard was mere inches from striking when she was pulled back with surprising force.  Lara gasped in shock as an arm, seemingly out of nowhere, wrapped tightly around her chest.  She stumbled back, her assailant keeping her at a distance from the still immobile Eckhardt.

Lara struggled, scratching, kicking, doing whatever she could to pull free, but he held fast, pinning her against his chest.  He kept a tight grip on the hand still holding the Periapt shard aloft.

"This isn't your life to take," she heard in her ear, breath hot against her cheek.  She recognized the voice, albeit it only from security footage.  Eckhardt’s aide had an unmistakable tone.

"He deserves to die, Karel, and I _will_ see it done.  For all the lives he took, he deserves to die a thousand times over."

"You're right, Lara Croft, but his life is not yours to take."

Before she could process those words or what exactly he had meant, Karel wrenched her wrist painfully to the side and she watched, helplessly, as the shard tumbled from her hand to the floor.  Karel cast her away roughly and she hit the ground hard, her head slamming against the metal floor.  Everything was a daze.  Lara saw white as pain erupted all through her head, but she bit back the urge to cry out. She shook her head and tried to crawl back to her feet, struggling to get her bearings. Towering over her, Karel was nothing more than a blur in her vision, but soon she could see him more clearly, unnervingly calm as he gripped the shard tight in his gloved hand. Fear flashed through her- but her strength had gone, and she could no longer summon the will to move, not even to avoid the strike she knew must be coming.

"I have followed this maggot through five centuries. He is mine."

Before she could reply, Karel turned and stabbed the blade deep into Eckhardt's forehead, only releasing his grip once it was buried to the hilt.  Lara heard a sharp crack as Eckhardt's head struck the metal pillar behind him. Blue light blinded them as the last of the alchemist's immortality flowed from him into the shard. His eyes met Karel's for a second, full of confusion, and then without a sound he fell limp, his now-decaying body thin and frail. His true age had finally caught up with him, and Eckhardt was left as no more than a five hundred year old corpse.

Karel stepped back, eyeing Eckhardt only a moment before he turned to face Lara and held out a hand.  Lara eyed it warily and instead chose to drag herself to her feet on her own.

Her gaze drifted to Eckhardt before returning to Karel.  She couldn’t understand his expression, blank and yet with a hint of triumph. "Why? You worked for him.  He trusted you."

Karel smiled without mirth. "No. He worked for me and always has, though he never realized it.  It was only after his betrayal that I allowed him off his leash. He was far more easily swayed when he held the position of power and was threatened by no one."

"I don't understand-" she began, but trailed off as Karel's appearance started to shift. She watched as his body drained of color into a sallow gray and his hair faded to a dull shade of white, blue eyes lost to a cloud of swirling black. Patterns and scars snaked over his skin, branching from beneath the collar of his shirt up over his jaw and curling into elaborate forms over his face.

"We Nephilim have only ever been trying to survive," he murmured, removing his left glove.  On his palm was a deep red scar, some sort of symbol she didn't recognize etched deeply into the skin. "I assure you this was as painful to receive as it appears. You can thank your American friend for that."

Though confused by his mention of the ally she had left behind, she stepped closer and hesitantly touched his hand. Surprised at how warm he was despite his pallor, she drew her fingers along the scar and traced its path across his skin. It was smooth, belying its violent nature, almost beautiful in its intricacy.  The pattern seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it.

Seeming to find herself, Lara pulled away from him. "What does Kurtis have to do with it?"

"Directly?  Nothing.  The Lux Veritatis boy has never met me."  His expression darkened.  "I have great respect for you, Lara Croft.  What I am about to tell you has never been shared with a human and has long since been erased from history.  Listen, and then decide where your allegiances lie.”

She kept one hand gripped on the pistol at her side, but remained silent and wary. 

Karel looked down at his hand, not speaking as he seemed to draw long-suppressed memories to the surface.  “You've heard of the Great Flood, I assume?"

"Biblical times, God causes it to rain forty days and nights to wipe out corrupt humanity, save Noah and his family. Yes, I know the story. Anyone who has read a Bible-"

"Your Bible is a book of lies," Karel snarled, losing his calm demeanor as he whipped around to face the Sleeper above them. "There was no God-sent rain and humanity lost no-one.  The Flood was an event your forefathers painted over with storybook tales. My brethren's blood watered the soil for forty days and forty nights, perpetual screams that left the deepest silence in their wake. Simply drowning would have been _welcome_."

Everything she knew about the Nephilim- everything she thought she knew –turned upside down in that instant.  A day ago, Karel had been a low-profile business lawyer who had thrown in with the Cabal for a chance at immortality.  A nobody in the grand scheme of things, really, and yet here he stood before her, preaching of lies and genocide that were so long past that she couldn’t have known whether he told the truth or not.  Dumbstruck, she could only reply, "What?"

Karel continued, now pacing as he lost himself in the memories.  "The sons of Noah claimed God had told them to destroy the 'children of fornication'. We were hunted. Slaughtered in our sleep. The young ones who could not fight back found temporary mercy, rounded up and taken prisoner. They were branded as bastard abominations- a literal branding, the same pattern dug in each of their hands.  Shortly thereafter most were murdered by their captors, systematically, one-by-one.  They incapacitated them, killed them, and dumped them in unmarked graves.  They were murdered simply for existing.  What a waste, to entirely throw away the next step in human evolution."

Her eyes narrowed. "If you were the evolution of mortal humans; what stopped you all from fighting back?"

Karel's looked briefly to the shard still embedded in Eckhardt's skull.  "Noah's sons had...help."

"And did you not as well?"  Though it went unspoken, they both knew to what she referred.

"The Grigori were indisposed.  Quite early on."

Eyebrow raised, Lara asked, "What happened to them, then?"

"Unable to return to the heavens, they were trapped below." 

"Really. And I suppose they still wander among us today?"

"No.  When they rebelled against their Creator, the Watchers were stripped of their perfection and rank.  There were well over 200 left below, and even I still do not know what happened to most.  It was written that the Watchers would be entombed for eternity for their sins."  He smiled and gestured up toward the Sleeper.  "And then I found one."

Lara’s breath caught in her throat.  Suddenly the creature above took on a new light.  She had believed it was a Nephilim specimen, even Eckhardt and most of the Cabal had believed as much.  It was the last of its kind, the last living specimen... _isn’t it_?  Karel had to be lying.  And yet his words were steady, his face triumphant.  If he was lying, he was damn good at it.

"I notice you say 'you' found it."

“You think this group of chattel could have found the Watchers on their own?”  He scoffed.  “I knew where to find Azâzêl from the day the Grigori were imprisoned onward.  Cappadocia was built on the backs of the Nephilim, at first to hide away our forefathers, but all too soon it became their tomb.”

“Are there more of them there, then?”

Karel shook his head.  “No.  The Grigori felt it would be foolish to gather all in one place.  Semjâzâ and Azâzêl, the greatest of the 200 and their appointed, took it for themselves.  I have managed to find only one other tomb.  The rest of them have been lost to time.”

Lara held up a hand and Karel fell silent. "So where do you fit into all of this? Hell, where do _I_ fit into all of this?  What has all this been for?"

Karel thought for a moment, as if he had never paused to consider the question.  Then he stepped back and set to removing his jacket, letting it drop softly to the floor. Lara watched, somewhat wary, as he unbuttoned the dark shirt beneath. She could see scars, long since healed, scars that he had carried through centuries, cutting across the taut skin of his well-muscled chest, stretching over his shoulders and down over his abdomen.  He turned from her, and she could see stumps of jagged bone where there had no doubt once been wings.

"I am the firstborn son of Semjâzâ, who was first to leave the heavens and commanded all those who followed.  I am the true Proto-Nephilim, the first and the last.  My race is dying.  You ask what this has been for?” He stopped to inhale deeply as though steeling himself for what he was going to say next.  “To me, this is _everything_.”

"And what now, Karel?” Lara asked sharply, not swayed by his words.  “Are you going to destroy Eckhardt’s work?"

"No, the Great Work will be finished.  Eckhardt’s actions have been predicted from the beginning.  Now that he is gone, I am free to finish what I began centuries ago."

"Then why haven’t you killed me?"  Her hand rested on a holstered pistol, gentle but deliberate. 

Karel paused. "Why would I kill you now, after all of this?  I've helped you all along, both here and in Paris. Did you never wonder why?"

"Paris?”  Even as the words left her mouth, Karel had changed. Briefly his face seemed to disappear into blurry mess of features before settling on Louis Bouchard. He paused on this face before it dissipated. Now Kurtis, now Luddick, now von Croy, now Eckhardt, slowly but surely Karel seemed to take on the form of everyone she had crossed paths with. Finally the transformations ended and he once more resumed his grey skinned Nephilic form. A breath escaped that she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"I was...unable to retrieve the paintings. Your mentor had similar troubles. But even without the guidance I have given, you have exceeded expectations every step of the way. You have discovered things that I had only ever guessed at. You, Lara Croft, are a credit to your species, perhaps the _only_ credit to your species.  Ultimately, my only wish is for a benign new world order of Nephilim and humans, existing together in peace.”

"…benign?" Lara pointed towards the Watcher high above. " _That_ is a living contradiction."

He paid her comment no heed, stepping back and holding his scarred hand out once more. "You can trust me, Lara Croft," he murmured. "Can I trust you? Will you join me?"  
  
Her mind writhed with indecision. If she took his hand, it would mean renouncing her life as it was, accepting his cause- and betraying Kurtis and everything he had fought for. And yet…she was tired. Tired of playing the hero, tired of protecting those who would only abandon or betray her. Tired of the running and fighting.  
  
Every instinct was screaming at her not to accept his hand, and she ignored them all. Her head was swimming from all that she had learned and she felt powerless but to give in. Lara laid her palm against his. Beneath her hand Karel's scar now seemed to burn red hot, and in an instant the world fell black around her.


	3. Fallen From Light

"Coming events cast their shadows before."  
 _-Thomas Campbell_

* * *

 

Images crossed Karel's view, unfocused memories that were both strange yet familiar. They weren't his own memories, in any case, if the pang of fear surging through his chest was any indication. Having not been afraid in some centuries, he was certain the images had to belong to Lara's past.

Pain erupted simultaneously throughout his body, as if every limb had been broken at once.  He nearly gasped from the shock of it.  It took a moment for Karel to realize he was feeling the ghost of Lara's pain. He could see nothing, a dark fog obscuring his vision, but her face opposite him cut through the haze. Her eyes were open, staring and empty. A second later, though he could still feel her hand in his, he lost sight of her and the memory overtook his mind completely.

Lara of the past lay on her back, pinned by fallen rocks and with a dozen injuries.  Karel looked out through her burning eyes a she blinked away tears of pain. There was now only settling dust and darkness all around; his throat was unbearably dry and there was a faint taste of copper on his tongue. Swallowing, the figure in the memory he was trapped within inclined her head to examine the room. The urge to scream crossed her mind. The urge to sneer crossed his.  How could this broken human be the same shadow that had pursued him halfway across Europe?

Outside the memory, he again struggled to separate from Lara and break the connection. Something had gone wrong during his manipulations, something he hadn't noticed nor calculated for.  No matter how hard he tried to pull away, their hands held fast.

The pain from before returned, stronger, the ache in his extremities almost blinding. One arm was broken, the other dislocated.  Even if she had wished to move, a massive pile of broken stone held her in place.  The Lara of the memory slumped back, no longer struggling, her eyes looking up at the distant light above. The sliver of sky high above was finally blocked out as more debris fell to cover the entrance. He heard her weeping, small sobs that shook her shoulders and made her cry out in pain.

He pulled his arm once more, more forcefully; her grip loosened slightly. He could see her hand clenched in his, knuckles white and nails digging into his wrist. In a brief moment of clarity he looked up to her face. The sobs had not been entirely distant.  Although her gaze was as empty as before, a tear cut its way down her cheek.

She seemed to recover her mind all at once and pulled herself roughly away from him. Her nails dragged along his wrist, gripping to the last second, leaving deep red gashes that healed only seconds after.

Lara fell on her side, struggling to catch her breath. Finally regaining control of his body, Karel slumped forward, palms firmly on the ground while the adrenaline subsided. He noticed with detached annoyance that he had lost control of his Nephilic form and dwindled back to a human one.

Spitting on the ground in disgust, Karel turned his gaze to Lara, eyes filled with disappointment. The weakness she'd shown both in- and outside the memory had been unexpected.  He was reminded once more that no matter how much he admired her, Lara was nothing more than a pathetic human.

Finally, Lara turned and focused directly on him. The anger she'd had toward Eckhardt paled in comparison to the rage she now showed, her eyes narrowed and a snarl twisting her mouth as she spat, "You _bastard_."

Confusion crossed Karel’s face for only a second before his lips curled into a smile and he laughed. Now it was Lara's turn to be confused, and she started as he slammed a hand on the ground hard enough that it shook beneath her feet. In only seconds, Karel changed from an already imposing human figure to a seven foot monster straight from nightmares.

"It is my destiny to resurrect the Nephilim race, to breed Hell on earth, and you…you are nothing to me, you weak-minded, simpering mortal. What wasted potential."

She was on her feet quickly, pulling a knife from her belt and lunging at Karel in an attempt to buy herself enough time to think of a plan. Karel was faster, catching the blade against a flat palm without even a wince as the point cut easily through his hand. He pushed forward on the blade to grip her fist. Reaching over her shoulder with his opposite hand, Karel wrenched her head back by her plaited hair.

Lara ignored the pain and pulled the knife from his hand, reached behind and sliced through her own braid.  Karel seemed taken aback by the move and stared with confusion at the limp length of hair in his hand, and in that moment she turned and plunged her knife directly into his heart, forcing it in to the hilt and releasing it when it would go no further. Karel stumbled back from her, face a mask of agony as he pulled the dagger from his chest and tossed it aside.  He knelt, dazed, as the tissue slowly knit back together.

Lara wasted no time crossing the distance between herself and Eckhardt.  She reached out to retrieve the Periapt shards and then paused, finally noting the Sanglyph still gripped in his gloved hand.  Behind, she could hear Karel recovering and moving to pursue her, and she made the decision to leave the shards and take the Sanglyph instead, pulling it forcibly from Eckhardt’s stiff grip.

Securing the Sanglyph in her waistband, Lara dove for the nearby ladder that led to the upper walkways.  She was still making it up as she went, but thankfully Karel didn’t yet seem to have realized it.  He pursued her as she scaled each ladder and was easily gaining on her by the minute.  She reached the top level, lungs burning as she struggled to catch her breath, and she stumbled towards the control panel Eckhardt had been manipulating.

She reached for the lever that would release the bonds holding Azâzêl still aloft.  Karel’s hand slammed down on hers before she could reach it and she cried out from the force of the blow.  Rather than giving up, she drove her free hand into his jaw with all the strength she had left.  It had as much effect as if she’d punched a slab of rock- and hurt as much, too -but it was enough to make him release her and take a step back. 

Taking advantage of his moment of disorientation, Lara yanked the lever down and vaulted over the control panel.  Karel reached for her, but grasped only air as she leapt from the platform toward the Watcher- who had been released from his chains and his millennia of stasis, and was now falling rapidly towards the ground.

Karel watched in horror as she caught Azâzêl midair and, holding him beneath her as a cushion for impact, dropped the twenty feet to the floor of the lab. The two figures landed with a grunt, Azâzêl now stirring from his sleep. With wide-eyes, Lara gathered herself and stood, the Sanglyph now in hand.  She stared at it, silently making a decision, and then took it in two hands and knelt on Azâzêl’s chest, pinning him.

"No!" Karel yelled, finally moving to pursue them in desperation. His feet had barely left the metal platform before Lara slammed the Sanglyph down on Azâzêl’s neck.  It cut through with surprising ease, decapitating the Watcher, and Azâzêl went still for the last time.

Karel hit the ground hard, stumbling as he ran to the prone form of the Watcher.  Azâzêl was dead.  The body shone as celestial energy built up, energy held within an angel that had no place in the mortal world.  He frantically searched the body for the Sanglyph, and realized with horror that Lara must still have it.

Face contorted in rage, Karel turned to see Lara sprinting toward the exit and went to follow.

Lara paused at the exit and turned as the Watcher’s body let off a blinding light, the energy inside now spreading out from the corpse and consuming everything in its path.  She watched, her face grim, as Karel stumbled in his pursuit and was consumed by the blast, his face a mask of shock before it was swallowed completely.  And then she was gone.

**X**

The hall was filled with the stench of death. A large insectoid carcass was off to the side and only a few feet from it a second form also lay dead, decapitated head seeping a noxious green fluid. But her ally was nowhere to be found.

Lara dropped from the platform to the arena floor on shaky legs that nearly gave out from the impact.  Her muscles all cried out for rest, but she forced herself onward, giving both carcasses a wide berth as she made her way around them.

A thrill of shock ran down her spine as she saw a pool of blood near the severed head and a worn metal disc lying close beside it. _Oh no,_ she thought, a sudden sensation of dread creeping up on her.

Lara lifted it with a shaking hand.  She had already lost so many allies, to add another name to the list was almost too much.  Leaving him behind had cost him the opportunity to see his order avenged, when it should have been Kurtis who finally plunged the shards into Eckhardt’s body.

Lost in thought, she barely registered the disc twitching in her hand.  It was only when the razor sharp blades snapped out that she took notice, nearly dropping it.  She held tight as the disc tugged earnestly at her hand, pulling her toward the dark tunnel that the mutated Kristina Boaz had emerged from before.  It pulled her to the lip of the darkness and fell immobile once more.

The tunnel was black.  Lara could see no more than a few feet ahead.  She swallowed, her chest tight as the fear threatened to paralyze her.  The woman she had been would have plunged onward easily with a smile and guns drawn.  Now, after Egypt, she found it hard to put one foot in front of the other.

But she did.  Not without some effort, Lara forced herself into the shadows and, hand on the wall, focused on one step at a time, keeping her breath steady and calm.

There were no lights and none of the scant illumination from behind seemed to penetrate the black. She walked in a straight path until she felt the wall change from stone to smooth metal plates. The wall curved there and she continued forward, now following a stream of cold air that she could feel gently caressing her cheeks.

Out of nowhere, the terror and claustrophobia within the dark that she had felt since Egypt returned.  The fear of being trapped, in pain, dying alone, everything that had kept her out of tombs for the past five years came rushing back and she tried to ignore it, but she was almost running now, her breath coming in short gasps. The calm she had struggled to maintain to that point was lost.

"Kurtis?" she called. All that met her was silence, not even an echo.  It was as if the dark had swallowed her whole.

It was then she fell, stumbling to the floor.  Her breath was coming in short gasps and she shut her eyes tight in an effort to control the panic.

She felt a hand on each shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.  Still unable to see, she knew somehow that the hands belonged to Kurtis, and she felt her terror subside.  "I got you," Kurtis whispered.  "I got you. Just hang on, I'll get us out of here."

She opened her mouth to question the blood, the disc, what was happening- and then lost consciousness.


	4. Temporary Alliance

"Women do not have friends- they have only rivals."  
- _Edmond Godinet_

* * *

Cool air washed over Lara's face. She blinked, brushing the strands of hair that had fallen in her eyes to the side. There was music playing- German, she guessed, though the radio was too quiet to tell.  The countryside rushing past was unfamiliar, but an overhead sign that indicated _Nurnberg - 500 m_ caught her eye.

Now fully awake and highly disoriented, she reached for her guns and found them missing from her legs, along with her holsters.  She turned to face the driver, head spinning as she did so.

Her anger wavered for a moment.  Kurtis, alive and well, was leisurely gripping the steering wheel with one hand while the other cradled a cigarette out the open window. She glared as Kurtis turned to look at her with the beginnings of a smile on his face. No, not a smile, she noted with growing irritation. A _smirk._

"Where are my guns?" she demanded, ignoring the nausea that was growing worse from the motion of the car. "And where are you taking me?"

He took a final drag on the cigarette and flicked it out the window.  "Away from Prague."

Lara shifted in her seat and felt a tug on her leg.  Looking down, she saw a rope tied around her ankle and secured to the metal frame of the seat.  “Well, that partnership certainly lasted.”  She slumped back in defeat and drew the blanket lying over her lap up around her shoulders, a small comfort that eased how powerless she felt.

“Your guns are in the back,” Kurtis said, pointing a thumb toward the rear of the vehicle.  “You’ll get them once we’ve had a chat.”

Lara turned to look behind the seat and, true to his words, saw her H&Ks lying neatly in the jumbled leather of her holsters.  There wasn’t another seat to be found in the vehicle other than the ones they were currently in.  Instead, the space was occupied by a motorbike that had been lashed haphazardly to the floor, the rear wheel still jutting out through open cargo doors that were tied shut around it.  It didn’t fit by any stretch of the imagination, but Kurtis seemed like he couldn’t care less whether it destroyed the interior of the SUV or not.  “How…resourceful.”

He shrugged, his face betraying nothing.  His features then twisted into a grimace as he gasped sharply and grabbed the steering wheel with his free hand, the other reaching out to catch her wrist in a tight grip. Though it wasn't nearly tight enough to cause pain, Lara still found her arm burning at his touch. Her head swam and she struggled to ignore it.

Finally Kurtis sat up straight in his seat, as if nothing had happened.  She noted his hand still on her forearm and frowned.  "You're injured, aren’t you?  How badly?” she asked, less out of concern for his health so much as her own well-being if he managed to pass out while driving.  

"Flesh wound," he mumbled.  Lara eyed his stomach where, from chest to navel, blood stained both shirts he wore.  It looked like anything but a flesh wound.  Still, he was able to stay upright and the pain seemed to have passed, and he finally released his grip on her arm.

Lara, on the other hand, was finally beginning to feel every injury she had sustained over the past week.  Her muscles all ached and there were cuts and bruises in places she hadn’t even known she’d been hit.  She winced and turned away from Kurtis, unwilling to let him see her face twisting in pain.  Between the agonizing discomfort and the hypnotic countryside rushing by, she managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. 

It was somewhere near the Western border of Germany that the fuel light went on.

Kurtis cursed and floored the pedal, hoping to cover as much distance as he could on whatever amount of petrol was left- not a lot, he realized a scant 30 minutes later, as the vehicle's engine died and the SUV gradually slowed to a stop on the shoulder of the highway. He put it in park and sighed, surveying the countryside around them in resignation.

A glance at Lara showed her still sleeping soundly.  Fresh bruises had shown up all down her arms, but otherwise she seemed fine.

Kurtis, on the other hand, lifted his shirts to find his wound bleeding yet again.

He opened the door and stepped out.  The front of both shirts were soaked in blood and he stripped out of them eagerly, wincing as the cold air bit at his skin.  Angling the side-mirror, he examined his wound and the torn and bloodied skin around it. It still gaped somewhat, and though the damage to the internal organs and arteries had been mended, his inability to sit still and focus on healing for an extended period of time was making it impossible to close the wound. Not to mention his source of regenerative energy kept waking up.

Reaching into the back of the SUV, he retrieved his battered duffle bag.  Inside lay the only other article of clothing he carried with him, a wrinkled green t-shirt left over from his days with the Legion. Though the rest of his uniform had gone missing in the five years since he'd left, the shirt had managed to stick with him and at that moment he had never been more grateful for it.

Below the shirt was a first aid kit and he opened it briefly to snatch a roll of gauze from inside. Too stubborn to attempt to sew his wound- as that would mean losing his control over the pain and likely blacking out –he instead wrapped several layers of gauze around his torso and tucked the loose ends under.  A sloppy job, no question, but he was counting on reaching Paris within the next few hours. He'd be able to sew it there, in the comfort of a warm room where he could pass out at regular intervals as needed until it was finished.

He slipped into the shirt and pulled it carefully over his stomach, then slammed the doors that still hung open and crossed around the rear of the SUV.  He untangled the ropes and bungie cords holding the cargo doors closed and opened them wide. His bike still lay on its side on the floor, heavily weighing down the back wheels. _No wonder my gas mileage was shit._

Kurtis took a few steps back and raised a hand. He focused on the space around the bike in his mind and lifted his hand further toward the sky. The bike merely jostled; grunting, he lifted both hands, a corner of his mind focused on the road behind for any oncoming traffic that might see him. It seemed clear for several miles around. Bracing with his left leg, he gave a mental pull.  Finally the bike moved, screeching as the engine dragged against the floor of the SUV.  He winced at the sound, but kept the pull going until the bike came to rest on the ground outside.  He gave the stand an angry kick and scowled at the bike; the paint on the fuel tank was now more scratched up than ever.

He then crawled into the vacated space and retrieved Lara's holsters and guns, stuffed them roughly into his duffel bag before strapping it to the front of his motorcycle. Assured that they were fully secure, he then crossed to the left side of the SUV and opened the door.

Lara’s face was now worryingly pale, and she appeared to have gone from sleeping to full lack of consciousness.  _Maybe I overdid it a bit._   Kurtis undid the seatbelt and pushed it away from her chest, then lifted her easily into his arms. She seemed so vulnerable asleep, a total contrast to how violent he knew she was capable of being while awake. Curiosity burned in him to know what she had witnessed in the subterranean chambers, but he didn't yet dare question her on it; at least, not until they reached a place he could restrain her if needed.    
  
Their reunion could have been different, had he not glimpsed her taking Karel’s hand.

He was positive she would murder him if she knew he'd tapped into her mind. But he had _needed_ to know what she had discovered down there, to know what had happened to his father, to see justice served before he died alone in the dark.  In the end, the only thing he'd discovered was the order’s true enemy and nothing more, as whatever she had witnessed when her mind connected to Karel’s was a mystery to him still. 

Still, the fact that Karel was no doubt dead gave him some peace, and it had been entirely luck that she had followed the Chirugai and collapsed near him when she did.  Five more minutes and he may have been dead.

He gently sat Lara on the bike and took the spot in front of her, pulling her arms around his sides and tying them together at the wrists.  It wasn’t the most secure position for a passenger, but under the circumstances it would have to do.  Turning the key and pushing down the kickstart with his heel, he smiled as the engine roared to life.  He pushed off with both feet and gripped the throttle.

They quickly gained speed, coasting down the highway at a far quicker rate than had been possible in the overburdened SUV.  At the rate they were going, they would reach Paris by nightfall.

**X**

Hours later, Kurtis woke up.

Suddenly aware of dampness around his midsection, he tried to sit up and examine the wound he knew had broken open. Last Kurtis could recall he had paused on a backroad intending to heal further…and had blacked out.

He tried again to pull himself into a sitting position, but couldn't move whatsoever. Ropes had been tied around his wrists and ankles and he could see that he’d been left in what appeared to be an old, dirty bathtub. Water poured over his lower half, falling gently from the showerhead, and the chain had been torn from the plug to prevent him from prising it out of the drain with his foot. The tepid water rose higher by the minute, covering more and more of his injured stomach. He could see a wisp of blood trailing through the water to his torso and all at once the pain came flooding back.

He spotted the line of green stitches across his belly and the rosy pink scar now forming around them, but it did nothing to ease the agony. Nothing was making sense to him, most of the disorientation no doubt a byproduct of his exhaustion.

Who had sewn his wound up? And where was Lara?

Swallowing, Kurtis tried to call for her.  His voice came out as a muffled grunt. Biting down, he realized there was a ball of cloth stuffed into his mouth and a strip of duct tape to keep it shut.  Bound and gagged.

"Finally woke up, did you?"

Gaze drifting to door, he could only glare in reply.

"You're drugged, in case you’re wondering why you feel so hung-over.  You’ll thank me for it later." Lara stepped into the washroom, her steps heavy against the wooden floor, and seated herself on the edge of the bathtub. She drew a finger through the water and cast a glance toward Kurtis. "Frigid."

_Bit like someone I know._   Having given up trying to reply, he let his head drop back and watched her in sullen silence.  There was a look of smug triumph on her face. She was showered and at least marginally more rested, the fire back in her eyes. Her guns were now strapped firmly to her legs over the clothes she had worn to Prague.

"You would have screamed from the pain," she continued, “and I couldn’t have that, not where others can hear.”  Reaching out, she tore the duct tape off with a single movement, and he squeezed his eyes tightly closed, willing himself not to cry out as half his facial hair was ripped away with it.  She pulled the cloth gag from his mouth, careful to keep her fingers out of reach of his teeth.  “Feeling nauseous?”

"Just need to sleep it off," he murmured, his voice low and dangerous. He clenched his teeth to keep from shivering.  “What exactly did I do to deserve this, besides pulling your ass out of the fire multiple times?”

“Nearly killing me ranks quite high on the list.”  Not missing a beat, she held out both of her bare arms, now littered with fresh scars and bandages over still-bleeding wounds.  Her bare abdomen was not yet bandaged, and there he saw the beginnings of a scar much like the one on his own stomach.  Kurtis was speechless.  He had been pacing the rate at which he used her energy to heal, hoping to avoid this very situation.  A pang of guilt made him look away from her, but he was far too stubborn to apologize for it.

"I won't beg,” he said quietly, his tone defiant despite the situation.  “This isn't the worst bind I've been in.”

"It’s not me you’ll want to be begging.”  She tugged on her gloves nonchalantly.  “At least one team of gendarmes, possibly two, are en route as we speak.”

“For what?”

"They've been informed of your role in the Monstrum murders."

"What role?" His tone was somewhat higher than intended.

"How you smuggled false passports into France to pass on to me?" She smiled. "They even have a record of you using them at the German-Czech border."

The blood drained from his face.

“Is this a bit overkill?” she continued, her affect flat once more.  “Perhaps.  But I’ve been jerked around by far too many people in just the last week alone to put up with a two-faced man I just met wounding me repeatedly for his own benefit.  I am _tired_ of being manipulated and used.”

"Gotta be honest, Lara, so am I."

"You're one to talk,” she snapped, “considering you would have dropped me the instant I gave you the information you wanted. It was foolish on either of our parts to think our partnership extended beyond the walls of the Strahov. We're even. I saved your life, however unwillingly, and you saved mine."

He laughed bitterly. "Saved my life? If I don't die of sepsis or hypothermia first."

“You survived one life threatening wound, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

"And how are you going to get anywhere in France without my help? Your face is plastered on every TV screen and newspaper from here to Belarus."

She paused. He could see on her face that the answer was _I don't know_. "I plan to lay low.  It shouldn’t be long until the authorities find whatever is left of the Strahov and piece together what happened."

He laughed again, bitterly. "Oh, Croft, you almost seem like you believe yourself."

Ignoring his words, she stood, glancing down to ensure her gear was in order, and then stepped to the door.  “Thank you for your help, Kurtis,” she said quietly.  He could almost hear regret in her tone.  “I hope you got what you wanted in the end.”

"Lara-"

"Your weapons are buried outside.  You can dig for them when you get free. I don't expect nor hope for us to meet again."

Kurtis watched helplessly as she pulled the door closed and locked it behind her.  Unable to physically locate his Chirugai, Kurtis couldn't summon it to his hands, and had no mental strength left to deal with the handcuffs. He adjusted his position, attempting to turn off the water with his foot. It grazed the tap, but could get no further. By then the water was around his shoulders, nearly overflowing the edge of the tub.  From outside he heard the roar of an engine and yelled in rage.  She was taking his bike.

Minutes later he heard shouts downstairs, the door slamming into the wall as it was kicked in.  The gendarmes had finally arrived.

Despite it all, a laugh escaped him, and he laid back to wait.


	5. Haven

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us  
with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke  
and a presumption that once our eyes watered."  
 _-Tom Stoppard_

* * *

The air wasn't cold. Autumn had been quite warm and far too sunny for the time of year that it was- not that Sylvain Villetier had minded. It reminded him of his years spent in Turkey, teaching during the slow months and overseeing excavations when he managed to find something, anything. The country had been somewhat picked over as far as new discoveries went, a fact that never ceased to disappoint him.  He’d be born and raised there, he’d fought for his country as all Turkish citizens arbitrarily did, and yet he couldn't discover anything new about the country's history that hadn't already been found, analyzed and catalogued years before by others.

She had, though.

It had been April, during a particularly dry season, and it was a hot, slow day for his class of thirty. She appeared, without so much as a call ahead of time, in the halls of Nevşehir University - specifically, in the doorway of his classroom, stating it was the only class focused on "ancient history and whatnot" – and demanding supplies and workers, only changing her tune to request 'employees' after the stunned, offended looks his undergraduates had given her. He'd been shocked at first by her impetuosity, then intrigued. He'd never before met a woman who lit up in excitement at the tiniest discovery, who hung on his every word as he explained the history of Cappadocia, the subterranean cities and the myths written of them, the rise and fall of the civilizations that had lived there. A woman who could be cold and professional one minute, then coy and playful the next. She was an anomaly.

It drove him mad. He never grew tired of it.

She was gone as soon as she came, leaving him with a lifetime's worth of memories, a final dig that had produced numerous items from the time of the Hittites to put his name to, and a re-evaluation of what _exactly_ he was doing in Nevşehir. And then somehow, when the news of the cutbacks and his subsequent termination of employment spread around the university campus alongside whispers of 'no foreign teachers', she appeared from England offering him a job.

"I'll pay you for every consultation," she'd explained during lunch at a café on _Rue de Rivoli_ nearly a month after the loss of his job. His severance pay had been waning, his phD no longer enough to keep him on his feet, and he knew she offered the job only to do him a favour. He'd sat silently across the table from her, considering her offer, when she'd added, "And I want you to pen a set of novels based on expeditions I've done in the past ten years."

"I can barely remember when I was twenty, let alone when you were."

Lara had given that coy smile again and reached for his hand. He remembered it having sent a jolt through him- remembering nights spent talking in the desert heat, entwined beneath cotton sheets, the stars strangely bright through the open window. But he'd shaken it off quickly and instead focused intently on her as she told him, "I'm trying to help you. Take the favour."

"I'm sorry Lara," he'd answered, "but I'm too old and too proud to take favours."

Lara had slapped his hand, scowling. "Don't be an ass; you're still young and you weren't nearly important enough at that university to be proud. All you have right now, Sylvain, is your title, and that doesn't put food on the table. Write the books, give me consultations as needed – if you want free rent, you could even take care of my flat here in Paris. Then you can research whatever you want, however long you want, without worrying about your funding, about your salary, about who will approve and disapprove of whatever subjects you obsess over."

He'd accepted. How could he not?

He never regretted doing so, that much was certain. Lying on a stone bench in the courtyard outside the very apartment she'd offered to him, he found his mind drifting, eyes closed tight to block out the sun. He hadn't seen Lara since five months ago, when she'd come suddenly one night and left just as quickly. The shadows under her eyes made her face look thinner than usual, near emaciated, and there had been no coy smiles, only stilted words and a physical presence that, at the same time, had been intangible. He could hear her upstairs, and yet she was so distant he was never sure if she was really there. And this had been happening for three years. Three unbearable years of watching her spiral and having her leave just as he was about to broach the subject of Egypt, just about to help her through her pain.

Hearing the news of her arrest warrant, he hadn't believed it. Hadn't believed her capable of what the news referred to as 'revenge'. _Revenge for what?_ Lara had only spoken very briefly of von Croy during the 10 years he had known her, and it was never disparaging words. Only regret.

The week previous she'd been to the apartment and already it seemed like months had passed. She hadn't spoken to him, and the only indication of her presence had been the footfalls ascending to the fifth floor, slightly tousled sheets on her bed, and missing pieces of her wardrobe.  She could have come and gone and he'd have never known.  The next day she was gone. His chest ached when he realized Lara had been there and not seen fit to trust him to help her, no matter the reason.

The wind shifted, the breeze cooling considerably. Brow furrowed, he turned to his side, one arm hanging off the bench limply as he drifted in and out of sleep. Within a few minutes it became clear to him that he couldn't stay outside without catching a cold. Weather- the one thing for which Turkey had Paris beat.

At that moment he became distinctly aware of being watched.  He opened his eyes slowly and started.  Two brown eyes stared at him in close proximity, smile lines at the corners to accompany the wide grin. "You're far too young to be napping in the daytime," the eyes scolded.

Sylvain sat up abruptly, running a hand over his tired, unshaven face and turned to face her. Now awake, he could see who exactly knelt beside him, as if there had ever been a question of whom.

"Hi," Lara murmured warmly.

Strange. A moment that had played again and again in his mind, and he wasn't sure what to say.

"I realize the media has painted me in an incredibly unsavory light, and you probably don’t want me here. Feel free to report me to the police. Just let me gather some clothes and food first, if only as payback for favors I’ve done you over the years." As an afterthought, she added, "Please?"

Sylvain didn't answer. Somehow he managed to smile, and he knelt down to wrap both arms around her, pulling her close for moment. Lara closed her eyes, not comfortable with such displays of affection but relishing the warm embrace of a friend all the same. It had been some time since she'd been in anyone's good graces.

"Don't be an ass," he mumbled, and felt her smile against his shoulder. "Come inside and wash up, and you can explain why exactly you've avoided me for three years."

Her face remained impassive, but she held his hand for a moment, scowling, as if even she didn’t know how to explain. Then, not uttering another word, she rose and made her way toward the stairs to her home.

**X**

Sylvain stood relaxed at Lara's bedroom window, sipping quietly from his mug of tea and alternating between watching the crowds milling about down below and glancing back toward the hallway where the bathroom door was still shut. The apartment wasn't particularly elaborate- a kitchen, study, hall and bedroom, all the usuals for any home with the added bonus of taking up the entire floor. It wasn't lavish by any means; lavish simply wasn't Lara's style. There were a few items indicative of her wealth, if the four poster bed and granite countertops were anything to go by, but she spent enough time in the place that it had long since paid for its extra comforts. But in spite of all of this, Sylvain had never felt entirely comfortable in it. The apartment he lived in only a few floors down was a quarter of the size of hers and felt more like home to him than the larger one ever could.

In the background he could hear the shower, the sound of it strangely comforting. It made her all the more real to him, more real than she had been in several years. Even as the thought crossed his mind, the sound of the shower faded, and Sylvain heard the door open a few moments later. He listened as footsteps down the hall drew near and then she entered the study and spotted him in the shade of the drapes.  She still had the weary expression of someone who needed a long rest, but the light was back in her eyes.

"Hiding?" she asked, smiling as she took the now-offered tea that he held out toward her. She closed her eyes, took in the scent and warmth of the drink.  “Nectar of the gods.”

Rounding her, Sylvain took a seat in one of the armchairs near the corner fireplace, and after a moment Lara joined him. She still seemed on edge, sitting calmly enough but with each muscle tense as if she were ready to spring from her seat at any given moment.  Seeing this, Sylvain murmured, "Relax". The tension left her shoulders somewhat, but Lara still refused to slump fully into her seat, her eyes constantly flicking toward the open window and back.

"Were the security systems updated this year?" she asked, eyeing the flashing red light of the camera concealed in the shadow of the roof's overhang outside the window.

"Yes. Motion detection in the halls, cameras on the front door and the outside perimeter, anything moves and an alarm will be set off in both apartments...Lara, what has you so paranoid?”

“Aside from Interpol breathing down my neck?”  She focused on the mug in her hands.  “I had a run in with someone that didn’t go so well.  I’d prefer not to have a repeat performance, that’s all.”

Whatever had happened with the stranger, she clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it.  She stared blankly at the opposite wall, silent and unmoving.  “Are you alright?” he asked gently. 

"Trying to decide where to start." She looked to be considering what to say next, and then finally murmured, "Werner is dead." Minutes passed as she seemed to absorb this, Sylvain not pressing as she let out a small, shuddering sigh and tapped her fingers lightly on the side of the ceramic mug in her hand.

"I know what happened. Though I suspect the media may have got the details wrong." He arched an eyebrow. "I'd prefer to hear the story from your side of things."

"I didn't kill him, if that's what you're wondering."

"It wasn’t, but good to know.  Why do they think it was you?"

"Because I was there at the time and my prints were everywhere." She waited for Sylvain to comment, but he didn’t, his eyes instead beckoning her to continue. "He was murdered by a man named Joachim Karel." Blue eyes, beseeching her. Blue eyes, turned to a haze of black. 

**X**

His reflection mocks him, strung up by his wings, hooks jutting through the bone like macabre piercings. The feathers died long ago, imperfection taking its toll. He prefers them this way. Intimidation by appearance is all he has anymore. His earthly form, his serene eyes and pained expression, these rob him of any presence; he tries again and again to merely glare forward in resolute silence and finds himself unable to stay quiet, and this angers him more than any torture inflicted by _them_.

Even as he thinks this, his teeth lengthen into points and he snarls at the door as it opens, as they step inside his cell and observe his shame.

They ask how he's feeling, mocking smiles playing at their lips, and he yells curses at them, blood from his torn mouth spurting across the stone floor. He tries to pull from his bonds to rend them limb from limb, and wails as the chains imbued with ferilium keep him restrained, keep him weak. Lapsing from his soft mortal façade, eyes fading to black and blood still coursing past the jagged points of his teeth, he falls still. He is weak. He is beaten. But he will kill them.

And he does.

But they pursue him through history, through a renaissance and past London struck by a manufactured pestilence of death. When he realizes they will never fully leave him, he takes to hiding, takes a mask and never allows it to waver. Walking among them, they lose track, and it is then that it is born- the Damned Five, his cabal. It is the time of his pet alchemist. His Judas.

Richard Carroll. The first of van Eckhardt's kills, but not victim of the man's lies and it's just his luck that Eckhardt believed him dead. He learned, that time, just how deceptive humans were capable of being, and when he came once more alongside the gas chambers and the fall of Germany and a man named Rouzic who could see past his façade and revered it, when he came _then_ the alchemist was weak. Weakened by his own mad lust for power and the bonds that sealed him beneath in his castle tomb.

That was his advantage. He used it. He would kill the maggots and bring back his race- would manipulate, and then finally kill, the traitorous Eckhardt.

And when the final so-called 'knight of truth' knelt before him, he found himself unable to remember why he had run in the first place and fled these weak creatures, and felt only his hatred, his rage, and the burning loneliness that had been his companion through five centuries of death.

" _You'll never win, Nephili. We've followed you since you were conceived. You are the last, and we will see to it that you follow your brethren."_

" _And yet you are the one on your knees, Vasiley, more alone than I ever was. I may be the last of mine, but you are the last of yours."_

" _If only that were true, Jehoiakim," his victim breathes, sadness taking over the man's face as he glances upward in his final moments, defiant to the end. "You are a fool."_

_His brow furrows, first in confusion and then in loathing, and he reaches out with a pale hand to grip the man's neck. To his credit, the human doesn't struggle, only watches with that damned smirk curling his lips; within moments the fire leaves his eyes, a final spasm marking his death, and he is cast aside. Only after Karel has torn through the tiny apartment twice over does he realize both the paintings and the final shard are absent, and that his last link to them has been severed permanently at his own hands._

An old man's dying words lead him to _her_ , and the shard is within reach again. He knows she should die and despite seeing her prone and helpless on the floor, he sees a use for her. She is spared. Another mistake, perhaps, but his human side had always manifested itself at the most inopportune times, whether or not he willed it.

" _You've located the painting for me. Why have you not retrieved it?"_

" _I daren't collect it, it's far too dangerous. But she'll be able to."_

_A cry of pain. The skull beneath his scarred hand caves like papier maché._

" _You humans break so easily."_

**X**

"…Lara? Is everything okay?”

Shaken from her reverie, Lara blinked away the memory and glanced toward Sylvain. Any expectation that had been on his face was replaced with worry. "Are you alright?" he asked again, setting his tea down on the side table, and Lara offered him an apologetic smile.

"Just tired, I suppose."

Nodding, he rose to his feet and took the untouched mug of tea from her hands. "That's enough for tonight, then."

"I still owe you an explanation."

"I'll hear it all later.  Might even make a good book." They shared a smile, and then Sylvain leaned forward and laid a gentle kiss on her cheek. "All the same, I'm glad this wasn't the one expedition you didn't come back from," he murmured. Lara smiled and squeezed his hand softly as he drew away, his footsteps fading slowly down the hall until they reached the door. A second later the lock clicked home, and she was once again alone.

Lara waited some time after he left before moving. The drapes were still wide open, and as the light of her fire finally died away she drifted toward the window and seated herself below the sill, basking in the comforting moonlight. She looked only to the edge of the light's reach, no further, not now that it was obscured by the darkness. Since Egypt she'd not handled the dark well, to say the least. The silence of night brought back memories of being trapped- alone, broken and battered and struggling to find her way out. Three years of nightmares and sleeping with the lights on.

She felt the heaviness of mourning and grief pull her shoulders down, and with a long, drawn out sigh, she let her head fall back against the wall and finally allowed herself to cry.


	6. Deceit

"The easiest way to be cheated is to believe yourself to be more cunning than others."  
 _-Pierre Charron_

* * *

   
Pained moans trailed him down the street and echoed off the cobblestones, only adding to his ever increasing irritation at the headache blooming behind his eyes. Passersby seemed to pay the noise no mind except to turn and hurry in the opposite direction. How they could tell which direction opposite was he had no idea, as most of the city was a cacophony of wails, like a pasture of dying animals waiting to have their throats cut.

Joachim couldn't help but smile.

A headache, after all, was nothing compared to what the population of London was dealing with. It didn't seem to matter where he went in the city; he'd inevitably pass someone dying here and a long dead corpse there, a child with blackened limbs quietly begging for help on every street. More than once he'd had to force their prying hands off his pant leg with a well-placed kick.

He finally emerged onto a more open street bordering the river and spotted his destination. An inn, lights dim and door firmly closed to the public, with the image of a dog ripping the head off a rooster painted in bright colours on the sign above the entrance. This no doubt meant the name was either 'The Rabid Dog' or 'The Headless Cock'. He wasn't particularly certain, nor did he particularly care.

The inside was almost equally as dim as the night sky outside, with the addition of smoke from both tobacco and a fireplace on the far wall to further muddle things. The tables weren't particularly crowded, nor had he expected them to be. A mug of ale wasn't worth the trouble of navigating neighborhoods and hoping you didn't catch the sickness from one of the many dead or dying.

Which suited him just fine. It wouldn't do well for Lord Richard Caroll to be seen rubbing elbows with the scum of the London proletariat, after all.

After a moment of searching he found his drinking partner seated in a far corner, bent over his mug and eyes downcast. He removed his coat, set it down on the table and took a seat across from the other man.

"Didn't flee with the rest of the nobility, Lord Carroll?" His strong German accent was more difficult to decipher than normal, thanks in part to the ale he'd no doubt been drinking for the past several hours.

"There's no particular reason to if I wasn't going to contract your plague, wouldn't you say? Wonderfully executed by the way, Pieter."

"Thank you, m'lord Carroll." Eckhardt's facetious tone did not go unnoticed, nor did the half smile curling his ugly lip.

"Richard will do fine, if you can manage to keep your damn voice down." He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and produced a folded note of paper, which he then handed to Eckhardt. The innkeeper was then making his way toward the table to take orders, and Joachim waved him away with a trailing glare to make sure he didn't approach again.

Eckhardt unfolded the paper and read a few lines before looking abruptly at Joachim. "What the hell is this?" he hissed.

"The next step," Joachim replied casually. "Far simpler to execute than spreading a plague."

"This fire you have planned could wipe out the entire city."

"That is the goal."

"But why? Far be it for me to complain about deaths, especially necessary ones, but this seems an excessive show of force."

Joachim rested both hands on the table, one over the other. His scarred, pale hands seemed luminous in the gloom, or perhaps it was merely his tunnel vision focused on the brand on his palm. His eyes traced the path of his scar in contemplation. "They're here. They've tracked me down, as I knew they would. I hadn't thought to tell you, but this was planned from the start. I hardly need the Black Death purely for the show of it, though I've enjoyed that as well. The knights are here, they are closing in, and I plan to thin their herd this time."

"Fire is a terrible mistress that cannot be controlled or contained. How do you plan to trap them with it?"

Joachim removed a second paper from his waistcoat, this one far more worn and faded. A hand-inked map of London he'd commissioned the previous week. He spread it out on the table and pointed to a circled area near the center.

"I will draw them to St. Paul's Cathedral, myself as bait. I saw no more appropriate a place to devour them in hellfire."

Eckhardt's face contorted in a hideous smile and he chuckled. "You have a flair for theatrics. M'lord." Again the title was almost spat rather than said.

Joachim took note of it each time. Clearly the arrangement of glove for servitude was no longer working for Eckhardt. The man was no more perturbed by him than by any other mortal human. It was only a matter of time, perhaps even days, before Eckhardt would feel their working relationship had run its course and then he would turn. And from there, with his glove and his newfound immortality and Joachim's half-finished Sanglyph, he would likely disappear. The man had more ambition than was healthy for a loyal servant and was clearly close to acting upon it. He would need to act fast. As much as he hated to admit it Joachim still needed the alchemist, if only until his fire was complete, and then he could fade into the background. He'd allow the alchemist time to finish his Sanglyph, time for the Lux Veritatis to shift their murderous efforts to a new target, and perhaps most importantly, time to forget that a man named Richard Carroll had ever existed. A few more centuries of secrecy would give him time to plan, to see how the still-infantile human race would flourish or fall. The growth they had achieved through the Middle Ages had surprised him. Most of it had been thanks to the gifts his forefathers had bestowed upon humanity in exchange for their goodwill, of course, but none of them could remember that. Perhaps they would destroy themselves in the end without Joachim ever having lifted a finger.

Joachim pointed on the map again, this time in a spot only a few kilometers from St. Paul's Cathedral. "I want this to be the source."

Eckhardt squinted down at the map, his eternally 60-year-old vision clearly doing him no favors. "I cannot read that."

"You don't need to. It is a bakery. Who would suspect a bakery fire of being anything other than a man's careless mistake? I want this fire to burn, and burn hard, for as long as it will take to seem amiss and unnatural. I want the Black Death to seem like a pleasant dream to London compared to the flames that will devour them. Are we clear, Meister Eckhardt?"

Eckhardt started then, quickly composing himself. "I'm sorry, m'lord?"

This time a bit more demure, a bit more submissive. A bit more worried.

"Isn't that what you've taken to titling yourself? 'Meister'? Titling yourself after greater men in order to gain respect? How many followers of your so-called teachings use the title?"

Joachim's own face was a mask of impartiality. Eckhardt was a brewing storm, stony and cold with thinly veiled fear and rage. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again, and still came up short.

"Your teachings," Joachim said slowly, tracing a knot in the wooden tabletop with a finger, "or mine?"

It took only two seconds. One, his facade changed. Two, his hand wrapped around Eckhardt's throat.

He pulled him close over the table. Eyes black as night glared at Eckhardt, tore into him, exposed all his sins for the world to see. To his credit, Eckhardt did not flinch away from his gaze but met it head on.

Then pale grey hand at his throat tightened, stealing all air away from his lungs. Eckhardt beat at Joachim's wrist in vain, all subordination lost. His terror was now palpable.

"I gave you that glove," Joachim hissed. Eckhardt's struggles were fading now, weak fists that tried and failed to beat him away. "I gave you that glove, I gave you your immortal life. Immortal, Eckhardt, but not invincible. If you presume to disrespect me and lift yourself above your station, if you presume to _betray_ me, know this, Eckhardt, know this, mortal- you are on the verge of death at this very moment and I have not used even a _fraction_ of the power I have. Imagine what I could do to you if I chose to."

He released Eckhardt and took his seat once more, his image returning to an imposing figure of a man. He smoothed back his jet black hair with one palm, tugged sharply on his waistcoat to straighten it and waited for his alchemist to regain composure.

Eckhardt was slumped in his seat with his gloved hand at his throat, gasping for air. After some time he let his hand drop- bruising remained on the skin of his neck, the shape of a hand -and he nodded. "Forgive me, master," he wheezed, coughing once. "I overstepped my boundaries. I will remember in the future."

"Of course you will. And if you forget you need only to look in a mirror to recall." Joachim folded the map and slid it across the table to him. "See to it that I have my fire, Eckhardt. And deal with this inn. The patrons and owner seem a bit too robust for their own good, if you take my meaning. I don't need my surprise reaching the knights too soon."

"Plague? Or do I have your leave to deal with them as I see fit?" Eckhardt flexed his gloved hand, albeit weaker than usual.

"I don't care, Eckhardt. Ensure it's quiet, that's all I need." With nothing more to say, Joachim stood and left the table, pulling his coat on as he left. He let the door close quietly behind him, retrieved a spare board from the ground by the doorway, and slid it through the handle. None could get in, and none could get out.

The screams inside went unnoticed as they joined the rest echoing outside through the night.

**X**

Normally Joachim would avoid churches entirely as they made him feel conspicuously watched. This night, however, he felt comforted. The imagery of vengeful angels was not lost on him, and he chose one such statue to stand in the shadow of. A hooded cloak helped him blend in with the darkness and it was from this perch that he observed Paul's Walk.

The nave was empty. With a plague running rampant in London it was ill-advised to gather in public spaces. The clergymen wandered about quietly attending to their nightly duties, missing Joachim's presence entirely in the process. The only light in the hall came from candle sconces on each column, half of them already starting to burn out for the night.

He heard the flames before he saw them.

The night had been quiet for once, the wails far away from the cathedral, and he'd even found himself closing his eyes to relish the silence. Though slow in building, screams eventually reached his ear, a yell here and there, but they grew louder and soon the clergymen were running from the hall to see what was taking place outside. The sound of hundreds of fleeing bodies soon rivaled the screams. The West windows were lit up, oranges and reds dancing on the stone wall inside. Joachim's alcove remained in shadow and he crouched down, drew his hood further forward over his face and waited.

Some time passed in darkness and silence, and then he saw them. A group of men and women slipped inside the cathedral through the giant wooden doors, each clad with a metal breastplate and mail, each wearing a similar cloak to his own with the hoods drawn up. They moved together silently, clearly so in tune with each other that it was as if he was watching the natural flow of water. They were seamless.

He took note of the arrow pattern carved into the center of each of their breastplates, identifying them clearly. Following on the heels of the initial group was a second group, no less organized and no less armored. The two groups split off midway down Paul's Walk, each holding their shortswords and spears at the ready. _How antiquated._

By then the flames were slowly starting to overtake the West wall. He felt a drop of sweat roll down his cheek, the heat of the hall bothering even his hardened sensibilities. He quickly took a headcount of the knights. They were 50, divided in two groups of 25. It could be better, but it would do. He took special note of Grand Master Guilhelm leading the charge, face resolute as always. Guilhelm stepped away from his group, eyes inclined to the ceiling, watching, as if he expected Joachim to drop from the rafters like a bat.

Two of the clergymen returned through the parted doors and stopped short, seeing the veritable army of men in plate and mail before him. Immediately the grand master strode toward them, already explaining his status as knight of the church and their purpose in the cathedral. Joachim sneered and left his alcove, hood down, melting along the shadows of the wall to flank the knights. Though silent and hidden, he managed to catch the attention of a single brother, a flicker in the corner of the man's sight. He broke away from the group with his spear held tight, and motioned for his brothers and sisters to remain.

Joachim waited, back to a column, until he could practically smell the sweat drip off the man next to him. He noted that the spearhead was a dark obsidian, roughly chipped to its point. _Ferilium._ Suddenly their antiquated weapons seemed more formidable.

The man's eyes drifted in a slow semi-circle, examining the walls before him for whatever movement he had sensed. Joachim released his hold on his mortal form then, slowly, feeling the held-back power course through his limbs. He chose an exaggeration of his natural form, the visage he used when fighting, a demonic specter that left most men pissing their britches in fear.

The instant the knight turned to finally face his hiding place, Joachim moved.

The man caught sight of the eight feet of shadow towering before him, the black eyes beneath the hood, the fanged smile, and immediately swung his spear round as if to take Joachim in the side. He was already stepping around the man's clumsy swing and it caught only thin air. He turned immediately back to his opponent and backhanded him across the throat with five razor-sharp talons. The skin and sinew parted easily in a gush of blood and the knight fell.

By then both groups knew something was amiss. Joachim had the advantage, as all they'd seen was a haze of blood coupled with a stifled cry. Immediately half of them charged forward, catching the grand master's attention. He pointed for the door and shouted to the clergymen, who immediately fled without much encouragement.

Joachim let the group get close before letting himself be seen, stepping around the side of the column furthest from the wall and taking the first knight in the side. She gasped as his fingers dug deep into her abdomen and immediately fell limp. He pulled his arm free and threw her into a crowd of her brothers. They were all stunned for a moment, whether by his image or height or fear. He pulled his cumbersome cloak loose and stood naked before them, his pale grey arm now coated in blood.

"Kill it!" he heard Guilhelm shout from behind, and immediately the crowd of ferilium blades swung toward him. He avoided their swings, allowing some to pass and part his skin, wincing as the metal burned fresh scars into his body. Confident fighters made clumsy fighters, he'd long since learned.

After dodging most of their attacks for a short time he finally ducked to retrieve one of the fallen spears and swung it around on his ascent, taking a crowd of his attackers off their feet. He immediately turned around to face the grand master, threw his spear and ran directly towards the old man. The spear went wide, but his legs took the strides far quicker than any mortal man could and Joachim reached him as he swung his ferilium greatsword with both hands in an upward arc. The blade cut him deep across the chest. He ignored the wound and snatched the man up by the throat, holding him aloft eight feet in the air. Every one of his attackers froze mid step.

"'It'? You presume to title me 'it'?" Joachim snarled. Guilhelm returned his gaze defiantly as he struggled to breathe. Somehow it filled him with more rage than he thought possible. He dropped the man to his back and retrieved the greatsword, holding it easily in one hand and ignoring the burn of the metal through the leather hilt. He let the point rest against the grand master's throat. "Use my name, human."

"Monsters and abominations do not deserve names," Guilhelm returned defiantly. "I will never use your title, creature."

Rage burned in Joachim's chest and came out as a yell, one that could have deafened all in the hall. He threw the greatsword aside and the man as well, so hard against the wall that the stone cracked. He followed quickly, lifting the greatsword from the floor as he moved, and pinned the grand master of the Lux Veritatis to the stone wall, sword buried hilt deep in his belly.

He stepped back and watched as the man hung dying, blood and spittle dribbling unceremoniously down his chin, then lifted a hand and torn off the breastplate, mail and cloth in one tug. Joachim's own wound knit itself back together while the skin parted on Guilhelm's chest, arcing cuts that bled easily. Each Hebrew letter that formed served to sooth his rage. He stepped back and snarled, "Jehoiakim, son of Semjâzâ . The only true monsters here are your order, and they will die with you."

By then the remainder of the knights were upon him, as was the fire.

Given the time he knew he could fight each of them by hand until none remained, but the fire had robbed him of time. Joachim gave one last look to Guilhelm's face- the light had gone out in his eyes rather quickly -then unfurled what remained of his wings and ran directly into the crowd, launching himself away as each weapon swung for him. His wings could only carry him so far, and he chose to land near the doors.

His plan was flawless and had gone off without issue. Every entrance save one was blocked thanks to the efforts of his alchemist pawn, and that single entrance was now at his back. The knights would be trapped in the inferno and burn away as meager penance for their forefathers' sins.

He turned and pushed the handle.

The door held.

His face fell. His pet alchemist had betrayed him, as he had predicted, but much sooner than he had bargained for. He pushed harder, as hard as his flagging strength could muster. Something unnatural sealed the door, something even a Nephilim couldn't overcome.

"We may burn," one of the knights called, stoic to the bitter end, "but we'll take you with us, Nephilim."

And so he let Eckhardt believe.

As the walls of St. Paul's began to crumble away in fire and the Lux Veritatis began to scream with the rest of the city, Joachim ascended directly through the flames and dropped to a backstreet below, letting his nephilic form melt away into a human one as he stumbled to the ground. The fire had burned most of what feathers remained on his wings into ash. The raw, red burns on his human form would heal given time and leave only light scars, and though the ferilium weapons had sapped most of his strength, they had done no lasting damage, but his wings, _his wings_ , the very thing that still tied him visibly to his father's bloodline were damaged beyond repair.

He crawled forward on hands and knees, arms shaking, and collapsed against the brick wall, crying out as he curled his wings back tightly against his shoulders. After some time he felt his strength returning and he slowly rose to his feet, now aware of the fire drawing close to the alley and of his own stark nakedness. He let the visage of Lord Richard Carroll die in the cathedral, wiped the slate clean of his face, and took on an unassuming peasant form, one that would not seem amiss naked in the plague-infested streets. He pushed the now matted blond hair out of his face and took a shaky step forward, away from the fire.

_Let Eckhardt believe he's won. And let them hunt him for the death of their leader._

All he needed now was time.


	7. Catch Up

"Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails. _"  
-Clarence Darrow_

* * *

Her skin was burning.

Lara sat up in bed, struggling to catch her breath.  Every part of her body was on fire beneath the sweat-soaked sheets.  She ripped them away and stumbled towards a window, throwing it open to the cold air outside.  The breeze had an immediate effect.  Catching her breath, Lara laid her forehead against the windowsill with closed eyes.

She had dreamed.  And for the first time in many months, it wasn't about being trapped and broken beneath a collapsed pyramid.  Somehow, it was much worse. 

There was no way to be sure what she had seen of Karel in the dream was real or an elaborate story her subconscious had thought up.  Somehow, she suspected it was the truth.  Her back still burned where Karel's wings had.  She still felt the adrenaline of the fight.  Her body had responded to the flames, dream or not.  And perhaps the most troubling part- she had sympathized with him.  She had felt the hunger to kill every last Lux Veritatis warrior in that church.

_I must be going crazy._

Lara turned to face the clock on the wall opposite her. It read 03:45 and the darkness outside confirmed it. She pinched the bridge of her nose; there would be no more sleep for her tonight, no matter how much her body was in need of it.

Wrapping in the small blanket laying across the foot of her bed, Lara made her way down the hall towards the washroom.  The blanket fell away as she turned a tap to fill the basin with warm water.  She splashed her face, in part to wash away the sweat, in part to wake herself up, and then looked in the mirror.  She gasped and stumbled back into the wall as she caught sight of her own reflection. 

Her eyes were entirely black.

Even as she noticed it, the shadow melted away into brown irises filled with worry.  In seconds Lara once again stared at her usual self.

She felt the burn of bile in her throat and leaned against the sink, waiting for the nausea to pass.  Worse than her distress over what was happening was the knowledge that none of it was imagined.  Karel had clearly done something to her in the underbelly of the Strahov and she had no idea what, and rather than stopping at his death, it was growing stronger.

**X**

The last light died on the tip of the cigarette in Kurtis's mouth and he flicked it away impatiently, watching it sail over the edge of the rooftop. Smoke drifted past his lips, making it hard to see his hands as he tugged sharply on the rope at his waist. Satisfied it was knotted properly and firmly attached to the stone detailing of the rooftop, he turned and stepped backwards over the edge.

His hand gave a quick tug, halting the rope from slipping through the harness any quicker than needed. He planted both feet firmly against the stone wall and slowly lowered himself, step by step.

A sharp gust of wind nearly knocked him off balance and he gripped tightly to his rope while waiting for it to pass. His exposed fingers burned from the cold, leaving him thankful he'd thought to put on gloves, if only to keep his palms warm and sans rope burn.

He let go for a moment, relishing the weightlessness as he fell past two stories of what appeared to be- on inspection through the telepathic red haze in his mind -two floors of pure storage. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she owned the whole damn building.

Fifth floor. He'd found what he needed.

Kurtis twisted his rope at an angle again, wincing as his fingers brushed the rapid nylon for only a half-second and gained red welts for it. Despite this, he managed to halt his descent and paused for a moment, wary of noise on the street below. Glancing down, he spotted a tourist drunkenly stumbling through the lower alley, aiming haphazardly for a courtyard door. The man was clearly in no condition to spot a man hanging above.

A quick mental nudge dislodged the lock holding the window closed and Kurtis crawled inside. He sat crouched on the worn hardwood, willing the boards not to groan beneath his feet.

He saw them then.  Cameras, blinking in the shadows of the ceiling, arcing in a path that would in seconds focus fully on him.

Hand reaching for his Chirugai, Kurtis let the weapon loose toward the far corner. A short buzz indicated the wires had been severed and the weapon arced sharply to the next camera. In a matter of moments six cameras lay in tiny heaps in the stairwell and he caught the disc once more. The blades slipped once more inside their metal sheathe and he slung it on his belt.

Kurtis pressed an ear to the wall and closed his eyes. He was rewarded with the faint sound of running water and gave a brief, triumphant smile before realizing the sound came not from his current floor, but above it.

_Goddamn European buildings._ He'd miscounted and made his way onto the fourth floor, one lower than needed. _...which means this should be storage._

Kurtis knew instinctively that every room ringing the stairs was empty.  A quick glance mentally showed that every room was the same, all except for one.

At the end of a long hall was a single door with a sliver of light below it. And now, after the security cameras had been dealt with, there was also movement. Heavy footfalls, likely male. Footfalls that were growing closer to the door.

Still crouched, Kurtis quickly made his way past the hall and started up the stairs to reach the fifth floor.  The door opened as he set foot on the firs step. Panicking, Kurtis glanced around before kneeling in the shadow of the banister and hoping it was enough to conceal him.

The door opened, slow and cautious.  Glancing around the corner of the banister, Kurtis saw a man emerge. Black hair and most certainly older than him by a few years, with a frame that was clearly post-military gone soft around the edges.  He waited as the man made his way down the hall and came to a stop only a few feet away.  Kurtis held his breath.

And then he remembered the cameras.  Both their eyes drifted to the nearest destroyed camera, and then finally the man spotted him

Kurtis moved first, slipping out of his hiding place and pushing the man against wall with both hands on his neck.  He was surprised by the strong grip that ripped them away, and far more surprised by the fist that slammed into his jaw seconds later.  Kurtis stumbled away, already forming a mental push, and spun back with both hands outstretched.  This took his opponent unaware and he hit the wall hard enough to dent the plaster before falling to one knee.  He didn’t stay down, instead rising shaky on his feet and throwing another punch.  Dodging it, Kurtis pulled him by the forearm and headbutted him sharply.  Both were left dazed and the fight paused.

Mouthing a silent 'ouch', Kurtis blinked away the stars in his vision before he reached for his still-dazed attacker and pinned him back against the wall.  He threw one punch to the man’s stomach, winding him, and then brought his head down on his knee.  The fight was over.

Kurtis caught the man as he finally lost consciousness and lifted him as well as he could. He carried him into the shadow of the hall and lay him softly just inside the door before closing it and mentally easing the deadbolt into place. The man would be out cold for some time.

Kurtis took a moment to catch his breath and then continued on his path up the stairs. No cameras were visible on this level. Obviously she believed she could take care of herself.

Halfway up the short flight of stairs he heard the sound of running water.  Kurtis smiled, knowing he’d found her. Turning the knob slowly, Kurtis slipped into the apartment.

**X**

The shower had been running for the better part of an hour and yet Lara couldn't summon the will to get out. Her sore muscles, unattended for the past week of being on the run, shook as the tension melted away from her body.  Placing two hands against the wall of the shower she arched her back and let her head drop to her chest, smiling.

Hearing a creak near the door, her head flew up. "Sylvain?" she called. A full silent minute passed with no answer and she shrugged it off. Her attention turned again to the task at hand, eyes closing and brain effectively shutting down as she let herself relax entirely.

Again there was a creak at the door.  She looked to the mirror that faced the door and saw, features obscured by the fogged glass, the reflection of an intruder. Lara had no time to react as the man came up beside her quickly and grabbed both wrists, pulling her away from the shower toward him.  She slipped on the wet tile floor and fell into a naked heap, and this was enough for him to lose his hold on her.  She crawled as best she could toward the counter where a gun was taped to the underside, but he changed position quickly, stepping into her path and pulling Lara to her feet by her arms. She instinctively tried to pull away but he had her pinned, back to his chest, water still dripping from her body and making his grip on her tenuous at best.

Lara let one foot slide between his and hooked around his ankle to bring him down, but he anticipated it and sharply kicked out the back of her right knee. She lost her balance as her leg gave out and she was hoisted up and out of the bathroom, her hands struggling to grip the doorjam.  Her efforts were in vain and he dragged her along the hall to the study, and threw her roughly into the centre of the room.  Some invisible force kept her flat against the floor, and shortly thereafter she felt rope at her ankles and wrists.  Once she was tied and immobile the pressure on her back eased.  Her attacker stepped away and she heard him pull a chair up and take a seat in it.

_And this is why I never relax._

"How did you find me?" She tried to incline her head back to see his face, but he had positioned himself behind her and out of sight.

"Shut up."

"Kurtis Trent."  She laughed bitterly.  “Should have known you wouldn’t take a hint.” 

A hand on her arm pulled her roughly around, turning her body just enough that she could see him take a seat once more.  Clearly he didn’t see any point in staying hidden if she already knew it was him. She blew a strand of sopping wet hair out of her face and self-consciously flattened both her palms in a feeble attempt to cover her naked bottom. To his credit, not once did Kurtis's eyes stray to her body; he kept his gaze trained on her face. He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

"Feels great, huh?" he murmured, eyes narrowed. "Naked, vulnerable, bound, cold.”

_Sore about his extended bath, then,_ she thought, resisting the urge to smile _._ Lara took in slow breaths through her nose in an attempt to control her rising temper and she stared back at him in defiance.

"This is my home, Mr. Trent. Get the hell out."

"Would have figured you for a mansion type of woman," he replied, ignoring her command.  He lit a rolled cigarette and took a long, slow drag.  Lara stared incredulously, wanting nothing more than to shout obscenities at him as he deliberately flicked ashes onto her floor, but she managed to bite her tongue. "So, Ms. Croft. I believe we have unfinished business."

"I could have sworn our business relationship had ended."

"Those police weren't much fun to deal with, you know.  Though once they were indisposed I was finally able to heal the nasty infection you left me with after your little stunt."

She stared. "You killed them, then?"

"No." He laughed. "No, _I_ don't kill indiscriminately to get what I need.  They're probably still unconscious on the floor of the room. Tied them up, of course, and disabled any phones or radios in the area. By the time they get out there won't be any trail left to follow and they’ll be back at square one."

"So how did you pick up on mine?"

“You’re not the only person out there with connections.  Do you realize I have the plates on that bike memorized?  You practically left me a map in taking it.”

She could have kicked herself for being so careless.  The bike was still parked on the road outside.  Once he saw that, it would have been easy to guess which building was hers.

"What comes next, Kurtis?" she asked, defeated.  They shared a look, one of neither warmth nor animosity.

"I've got some questions for you."

"And you’ll get no answers while you're seated up there and I'm tied down here."

He considered this for a moment.  “I’ll sit you in the other chair, but you stay tied.”

She said nothing as Kurtis knelt, reaching for her restraints.  His eyes widened slightly as he realized the ropes were loose- she’d manage to untie them.  Lara's hand whipped out and gripped his neck tightly.  She braced herself on her other hand and swung her knees around- still tied –to slam into his groin. Kurtis gasped and fell onto his side, immobilized. Lara quickly untied her ankles and stood, swinging a foot to kick him in the stomach; he caught her foot as it came near, but to her surprise he simply held it there.

"We're even," Kurtis groaned, still unable to do much more than lay still. "Jesus Christ, Lara, I'm not here to kill you."

“Then what are you here for?” she snapped, wrenching her foot away and stepping back.

“The same reason I didn’t let you go in Prague.”  He got to his knees.  “I want to talk.  I swear to god, just talk to me and I’ll leave, you won’t see me again.”

She backed down slightly, the adrenaline subsiding.  He stayed on the floor where he was, face pleading with her to trust him.  He tossed his gun and bladed disc to her feet and held his hands up in surrender.  Lara eyed them, thinking, and then reached in her desk and retrieved handcuffs, which she then snapped on each of his wrists.

“ _Now_ we can talk.”

**X**

Finally clothed and dry, with what remained of her hair now pulled back in a tight ponytail, Lara made her way back to the kitchen where Kurtis sat in silent complacence.  She knew he could remove the handcuffs at any time, and yet they still dangled from his wrists.  He clearly wasn’t about to test the boundaries of what little trust she had.

Rummaging through the mostly bare cupboards for a few minutes, she returned to the table with a small wheel of brie and a baguette she had sliced up earlier that day.  Cutting a few pieces of cheese off the wheel, she spread them on the bread and set each one in front of Kurtis.  The knife she kept for herself.

"Now that I think about it,” Lara said, “how did you get into the building without setting off the alarms? And where exactly is Sylvain?"

"Sleeping," Kurtis replied, fingers forming air quotations. "Assuming you mean the guy that came at me downstairs.”

"I'm sure you feel quite proud of yourself, beating up a man ten years older than you."

He grinned.  “The guy held his own pretty well.  I’m just better.”

They ate in silence, Kurtis pointedly not meeting Lara’s eyes while she stared openly at him.  His face seemed tired and worn, though he hid it well behind the jokes and smiles.  A scar cut across his cheek, clearly an old wound, and only one mark of many.  Beneath it all he was handsome, albeit in a rough sort of way. 

“So where do we start?” Lara asked, clasping her hands on the table.  “What do you want to know?”

Kurtis shifted in his seat uncomfortably.  “Truthfully, what I most want to know is what exactly you saw in the moment your minds overlapped.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “How did you know about that?”

“I was watching,” he replied, at least having the decency to look guilty. 

“How?”

“Well, I can show you, if you’ll let me.”  He got out of his chair and pulled it around the table as best he could with bound hands, then sat facing Lara.  Both hands rested palms-up on his knees.  “Take my hands.”

Wary, Lara did as he said.  His skin was cool, soothing where Karel’s touch had been immensely painful.

“Close your eyes,” he continued.  She did so.  “Now just relax.”

A warm feeling passed over her body, and then nothing.  Lara could no longer feel his hands, no longer had any sense of presence in her own body.  She had become an observer in her own mind, and soon felt someone join her there.  She felt a sense of panic rising.

“Relax,” Kurtis breathed.  Somewhere in the corner of her consciousness she could still see him seated before her, his own eyes closed and hands still cradling hers.  She forced away the panic, not without some effort, and allowed him to guide her through it.

Most of the images he passed over, uninterested in the generalities of Karel’s life or already far too familiar with the history the Lux Veritatis had with him.  She felt dizzy as he seemingly sifted through her mind, searching intently for something.

Finally, he found what he was looking for.  The memory was laid out before them, frozen in place, Karel standing over his victim with an expression of pure loathing.  Lara took a moment to stare at the man knelt at Karel’s feet with a nagging feeling of familiarity.  The defiant smirk, the dark hair and beard…had his eyes been a cold blue he would have been a twin to Kurtis.

The scene never progressed.  Kurtis let it go before it could, again searching.  She had shown him all that she had seen and couldn’t fathom what else he could possibly need to know- until he settled once more, this time on a tableau of snow-covered Prague.  This was a memory not her own, nor one she could recall having seen.  Both of them observed with equal interest as Eckhardt- no doubt actually Karel, considering it was his memory -made his way across the very square that Lara herself had stood in only days prior.  He disappeared down the alley near the Vasiley Gallery, still following tracks that Lara knew well.

A fist through concrete and he was through.  Karel stepped in through the entrance left by the hole.  The wall was missing the telltale markings of the Monstrum that she had discovered on her way through, and the house was quiet, save gentle footsteps making their way down the stairs towards the basement.

Karel made no pretences of hiding.  He stood, waiting, as Mathias Vasiley stepped into the doorway and flicked the lights on.  The art dealer’s eyes widened only a fraction in surprise, and then he smiled a sad, resigned smile.

_“It’s time, is it?”_ Karel said nothing, only advancing slowly on the elderly man. _“I suppose I couldn’t stay hidden forever, and what a shame for a father to outlive his son.  Tell me, did he suffer at your hands?  Or did you at least give him a quick death?”_

_“Oh, I assure you,”_ Karel murmured, _“he suffered greatly.”_

_“I’d expect no less of you, Eckhardt.  I’m honored you’ve taken the time to come yourself, to do away with one so lowly as myself.  Of course, you should realize that I will tell you nothing of the shards nor the paintings.”_

Karel gave a biting laugh, one that seemed to throw off Vasiley’s stoic calm.  _“Lux Veritatis, eternally trapped in the past.  We intercepted your fax quite easily, Vasiley, and are already preparing to enter the crypt for the final painting.  As for the shards…I have no concerns regarding those.  Already one is in my hands, courtesy of your son, and it seems the remaining two will be mine shortly.”_

Vasiley looked pained at those words, though he tried to hide it.  Finally he started to withdraw, shoulders slumped and defeated.  _“So I have failed.”_

_“In more ways than one.”_ Neither Lara nor Kurtis could see the physical change, now viewing the memory out of Karel’s eyes, but they knew from the look on Vasiley’s face that Karel had finally shed the guise of Eckhardt and appeared to him in his true form. 

_“Jehoiakim,”_ Vasiley whispered, horrified.  _“You should be dead.”_

_“I should be.  Funny how that turned out. You stand here as one of the last while I am alive and well.”_   Too late Karel realized his misstep, and at his final words Vasiley seemed hopeful once more.

_“So I am not the last of mine,”_ Vasiley said, voice stronger.  _“Take me then, Jehoiakim, and know that for each one of us destroyed, there is still hope.”_

_“The boy?”_ Karel growled.  _“What misplaced hope.  Your grandson is weak and untrained, uncommitted to your cause and driven by revenge.  His hubris will be his downfall.”_

Kurtis let the memory go then, and all at once they were back in the kitchen.  Kurtis had released his grip on her hands and was sitting quiet, eyes downcast.  She could see the pain buried deeply there.

“Vasiley was your grandfather,” she said gently.

Kurtis pressed two fingers to his eyes.  “Yes.”

“Your name isn’t Trent at all.”

“No.”  He let his hand drop and met her gaze.  “Kurtis isn’t my first name, either, but I’ve been Kurtis Trent for so long it’s hard to imagine being anything else.”

She let the matter rest out of respect.  “I don’t remember that particular memory.  How did you find it?” 

“An imprint of Karel, a trace of him, might still be with you, which would explain memories you don’t recognize.  They’re likely buried deep.”  He hid a yawn behind a hand.  “Telepathic links are not my area of expertise, otherwise the first one might not have gone so wrong.”

“Then…Karel-“

“-never intended for your minds to overlap,” Kurtis finished for her.  “That was my own stupid mistake.  Though I think it probably saved _you_ from making an equally stupid mistake.”

They fell silent again, staring at each other with challenging eyes.  A thought came unbidden into her head, of a rough hand slipping across her body while the cool metal of a gun barrel pressed hard against her neck.  A blush crept over her cheeks and she broke the stare first.

“Is this where you ask me to trust you?”

Kurtis shook his head.  “No.  We’ve both gone a bit too far to be asking that, I think.”

Some small mercy prompted her to unlock the handcuffs.  Kurtis started as they hit the floor with a dull thud.  "I am going to take a gamble on you,” Lara told him, voice firm and cold, “and if you do anything to betray the tentative trust I'm placing in you, I will put a bullet between your eyes.  Are we clear?”

“Crystal,” he said, rubbing his sore wrists.

“You can spend the night.  We’ve both had a rough week, I think, and you look dead on your feet.  But I want you out by tomorrow night.  As far as I’m concerned, this whole business is now over.” 

Kurtis nodded.  He looked relieved, all the fight out of him at the thought of a good night’s rest and full meals.  Leading him down the hall, Lara gestured into the study, where he immediately set to work arranging the chairs in such a way that he could sleep stretched out between them.  As an afterthought, he pulled the drapes closed and shadow took over the room.  Lara immediately took a step back, into the comfort of the lit hallway, but he was preoccupied enough not to notice.

“I’ll be back,” she told him, turning to leave. “Best check on my friend that you roughed up.”  He waved her away, already drifting off in his makeshift bed.


	8. Chapter 8

 

"For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers:  
our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding."  
 _\- 1 Chronicles 29:15_

* * *

  
  
In the early morning hours everything was still quiet, without even the low hum of the security cameras to break the calm. Lara could hear rain falling outside, punctured every so often by the foreboding rumble of thunder growing steadily closer. There would no doubt be a storm soon.  
  
Lara reached Sylvain's door at the end of the hall and opened it. The apartment was dark, the only source of light a small desk lamp that Sylvain was seated next to. A mirror was propped up facing him and Lara could see in the reflection a deep cut across his temple. His hands were busy with a threaded needle, tugging it through the skin and hissing for every inch he pulled.  
  
He paused to sip from a small glass filled with whiskey, and mid-sip noticed Lara behind him.  
  
"Need help?" she asked, closing the door behind her and coming to his side.  
  
"Nearly done."  
  
"The sewing or the drink?" Lara took the needle from his hand and tilted his chin up to finish the job, the last few rows of stitches much straighter than the first. She dropped the bloody needle into the sink and flicked the lights on before turning back to Sylvain. With his face now fully lit she could see the nasty bruise that had formed, trailing from temple to jaw. He looked far worse off than he likely was. If anything, the worst wound was to his pride.  
  
"And here I thought I'd be the one taking care of you," Sylvain mumbled, setting down his now empty glass and gingerly touching the stitches with a grimace. "I don't think I've had a fistfight since the army."  
  
"Clearly you were overdue for one, then," Lara returned, smirking. She leaned back against the sink, arms crossed. "You never came to check on me."  
  
"You've never needed my help before, Lara. You must be getting out of shape."  
  
She raised an eyebrow, mouth open in mock affront. "Speak for yourself!"  
  
He laughed, but it died off quickly and he looked at her with concern. "You joke, but are you alright? You're here and unhurt, so the attack was less than successful."  
  
"It wasn't exactly an attack, per se," she said slowly, wondering how to explain the complicated relationship she shared with Kurtis. "Do you remember the encounter I'd mentioned that didn't go so well?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"I may have, perhaps…left him tied naked in a bath and called the military police on him."  
  
Sylvain's eyes widened. "Well, uh. That certainly explains why he didn't try knocking first. And where is he now?" Uncomfortable with Lara's track record of respect for human life, or lack thereof, he let the big question- _Did you kill him?_ -go unspoken.  
  
"Sleeping in my study." She cut off whatever he was about to say with a look. "He will be gone tomorrow. I've told him as much, and I gave him what he wanted , he has no reason to stick around."  
  
"And what was it that he wanted?"  
  
What was that, indeed. Lara couldn't begin to explain Kurtis's abilities or the events of the past week, and she wasn't sure Sylvain would believe most of it regardless; he already thought most of her expeditions were half fiction.A typical academic, he always needed the scientific evidence, and she had none. Instead, she shrugged. "I'll tell you later. You should get some rest."  
  
"Unlikely. Let me just change into some clean clothes and perhaps I can see about getting us some coffee." He slid off the stool and left for his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Lara considered making the coffee for him, but her kitchen skills were mostly restricted to beans on toast or boiling water, and poorly at that. It was best left to the experts.  
  
She took advantage of the moment alone to wander the apartment, walking along the far wall where full bookcases stretched floor to ceiling. Most titles were academic texts written in Turkish or French, but she noted a shelf mostly empty except for a row of books with her name on the side. _Should be his books, considering how little work I put into them._ She pulled one down and wiped the thin film of dust from the cover, then flipped it over and frowned. The photo they had chosen for the back was the only one she had ever agreed to sit for, as she'd never been interested in forcing a smile for the camera that would look as fake as it actually was, and Sylvain had done all the writing. But his conditions when originally taking her offer had been to ghost-write and keep his name away from the project, in part to separate his career and standing as an archaeologist from her too-good-to-be-true adventures that most didn't believe anyway, and in the end she had conceded.  
  
The Lara in the photo sat leaning back in a chair in her go-to outfit of shorts and bodysuit, her boots resting on the tabletop with no consideration to the piles of old documents scattered around. She looked positively smug staring into the camera. The whole thing seemed like stupid theatrics in retrospect, though she could recall that the messy library they'd taken the photo in was her own, and the documents she was ruining with her boots were ones she'd been obsessing over for months with little luck uncovering anything new. The opportunity to show them a little disrespect had amused her greatly, and horrified Sylvain.  
  
She quickly replaced the book on the shelf. The Lara that had looked out from the photo was the image of a capable, self-assured woman who feared nothing. She hadn't been that woman in some time, no matter how much she longed to be. A several year sabbatical had done nothing to light that fire in her again. Even recent events, as invigorating as they were, left her feeling worn and shaken; despite it all being over, she was still haunted, and no closer to find a solution to her own inner turmoil.  
  
Moving on from the books, Lara crossed the room and drew back one of the drapes. A fine mist was falling outside; the thunderstorm had moved on. Some of the rain may have even been snow. She pushed one of the windows open slightly and leaned against the sill.  
  
Perhaps this was what she needed, this calm escape from the world outside. She owed nothing to Kurtis, after all, and had already given him more than enough answers. He'd only been a nuisance to her, and an untrustworthy one at that, willing to use her to get what he wanted. She'd had enough men like that in her life. Kurtis was no different from any of them.  
  
Briefly her thoughts went back to Karel, and she looked down at her palm, the faint burn there still raw but beginning to heal. It bothered her, how close she had come to succumbing, to giving up and letting him take her along into his so-called new world order, and the scar that now graced her own palm was a painful reminder of that. She still had questions, of course, of the things he had told her, the things he had done, but there remained no one alive who would have the answers. The stories, and arguably the truth, had died with the Nephilim in the underbelly of the Strahov, leaving her with her confusion and the small Sanglyph still tucked snugly into her backpack upstairs. She wasn't sure what to do with the thing, and was convinced that her proximity to it was only aggravating whatever link to Karel she still had‒ whether it would be harmful in the long run or not, she couldn't say.  
  
Perhaps Kurtis would wake up, take it, and get the hell out of her life. Maybe then she would heal.  
  
 _"...cru pour être le travail meurtrier du Monstrum."_  
  
Lara turned abruptly to the small radio behind her. She had dismissed it as background noise, but one word caught her attention. She crouched to listen close to the speaker, turning the volume up just enough that only she could hear it. Her brow furrowed as she focused on the quiet French.  
  
 _"...-body was discovered today by family of the deceased. Unidentified symbols were found painted on the wall of the victim's home near to where the body lay, seemingly with the victim's own blood. Thus far, detectives have been unable to identify what language these symbols may be in, but the layout of the scene and mutilation of the body are consistent with several recent murders committed by the 'Monstrum' serial killer."_  
  
Lara looked up, confused, as Sylvain finally reappeared. He caught sight of her expression and stopped short. "What happened?"  
  
"Do you have a television?"  
  
"In the corner under the stack of papers."  
  
Lara didn't bother to explain. The television was near-buried beneath out-of-date newspapers, but seemed to work well enough when she switched it on. It was already set to the news, and she stepped back, eyes wide, as the camera panned over a full wall of bloody, unreadable script.  
  
The murder had taken place in Paris only the night before. The script was identical to that which she had seen in Werner's apartment, save that the lettering seemed less random, a paragraph of it below the symbol that took front and center. The brand that was forever burned into her memory.  
  
A photograph of the victim took over where the crime scene footage left off, an aging fellow smiling wide for the camera with his arm around the shoulders of a somewhat younger man. The background was clearly the Louvre – the Richelieu wing, if the artwork behind them was anything to go off of – and Lara recognized the man with his arm around the victim as the current director of the museum. The victim himself was unfamiliar to her, but at his photo she heard Sylvain gasp.  
  
She turned to see him with a hand over his mouth in shock, and she touched his shoulder in concern. "Sylvain, what is it?"  
  
"That man is Édouard Laurent. He was next in line for curator of religious antiquities at the _musée_." Sylvain sank heavily into a chair, horrified. "I just saw him not two weeks ago."  
  
Lara looked back at the screen. "Did he have anything to do with the digs that were taking place beneath the museum recently?  
  
Sylvain looked confused by the question, but shook his head. "No, his interests were primarily in religious iconography. As far as I know, that dig was strictly in the hands of Dr. Carvier. He may have been consulted, if anything, but nothing more than that. Why…why would someone want to murder him?" He looked to Lara as if she'd have the answer.  
  
Lara had no answers for him, her mouth set in a thin line. The footage switched back to the bloodied wall. "Do you know what language that is?" she asked gently.  
  
He turned to look, wincing at the gory image but examining it thoroughly all the same.  
  
"It's gibberish," he said after some time, brow furrowed. "There's bits of Hebrew, some Aramaic. Most of it is unintelligible."  
  
"It's not. It's a message."  
  
Kurtis was standing in the shadow of the doorway. His face was grim, eyes still dark with exhaustion. Lara frowned, noting that his gun was once again in his shoulder holster.  
  
Sylvain went rigid at the sight of him, eyes narrow, no doubt wanting nothing more than to finish the fight Kurtis had started before unceremoniously knocking him out. Kurtis seemed to notice Sylvain then, looking only momentarily surprised at the damage he'd managed to do to the other man's face. He looked ready to apologize, then seemingly thought better of it and turned away. Lara rested a hand on Sylvain's arm. "Why don't you go get some fresh air?" He shot her a look, but nodded and took his leave. He gave Kurtis a wide berth on his way out, and the American didn't bother to acknowledge him as he left, instead focused on the news report.  
  
"What message would that be?" Lara asked once Sylvain was gone. She paused. "And what are you doing awake already?"  
  
"Was restless, figured I'd check up on you," was all he said, eyes intent on the television screen.  
  
 _I wasn't born yesterday._ Lara knew exactly what he meant between the lines- he didn't trust her enough to let her out of his sight.  
  
There was an uncomfortable silence before Lara noticed his lips moving silently as he stared at the image of the bloodied wall. "You understand that?" she asked, incredulous, nodding at the screen.  
  
"Oh, I'm not just a pretty face, Croft," he replied with a small smirk. "All Lux Veritatis members are fluent."  
  
"Fluent in what, exactly?"  
  
He didn't bother to look at her, only replied, "The language of the Watchers, a language never meant for mortal eyes."  
  
His words hung on the air. Lara crossed her arms, skeptical. "Why would heavenly beings bother with a written language?"  
  
"That I don't know. That professor-"  
  
"Laurent."  
  
"Yeah, him. Did he have any connection to the Cabal or the Obscura paintings?"  
  
"Sylvain doesn't think so. I wouldn't know, I never even met the man."  
  
"Do you think Laurent knew about the Obscura paintings? Would Carvier have consulted him about the religious imagery or anything like that?"  
  
Lara sighed in exasperation. "I really don't know, Kurtis," she replied wearily. "Who would kill him for it if he did know?"  
  
Kurtis was silent, thinking. Finally he turned to Lara, so abrupt that she jumped in surprise, and took a step closer, his eyes burning into hers. "Where are the shards, Croft?"  
  
"What?" She took an involuntary step back, uncomfortable with how close he was, and Kurtis closed the distance, backing her up against the wall.  
  
"Where are the shards?" Kurtis repeated, louder and more urgent.  
  
"I don't…" She thought back to her confrontation with Karel, playing back the events in her mind until she remembered what had happened to the shards, and she went pale. "They're still buried in Eckhardt's body."  
  
Kurtis froze, eyes first wide and then glaring. "You goddamn idiot! You _left them there_?! Knowing how important they are, knowing they're the only thing that can kill a Nephilim? I entrusted that task to you, and you _left them_?"  
  
Lara's heart pounded in her chest, a mixture of anger and dread. She hadn't touched Karel with the shards, not even once; indeed, he hadn't even touched the shard himself without his hands gloved for protection. Given the choice between Sanglyph and shards, she'd not had time to retrieve the latter, and in the end had only see Karel stumble and fall into light. She hadn't bothered to stay and confirm whether he was actually-...  
  
"What does that wall say?" she asked, her voice quiet.  
  
Kurtis laughed bitterly, and turned around to face the screen. " _And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgment that is for ever and ever is consummated._ " He turned back to her. "A line from the Book of Enoch, written in the language of the Watchers, displayed over a mutilated corpse. Where have we seen that before, Lara?"  
  
Lara shoved Kurtis roughly away, her anger reaching a boiling point. "And where were you to help when it came down to it? Your apparent life's calling, your chance for 'justice', and you stayed back to get yourself skewered by a goddamn bug. You threw me out of that arena, you could have _easily_ gotten yourself out as well and done your own dirty work. You have _no_ excuse, Kurtis Trent, _no_ right to criticise my efforts when I was the only one putting any effort in at all!" She was on the offensive now, backing him into a corner, and Kurtis stared dumbly, speechless. "And you have the gall to call me an idiot, in my home, when I never asked to be pulled into any of this to begin with?"  
  
Lara pulled a gun from her waistband and trained it on his face. They stared each other down, her finger hovering over the trigger, and she wondered why he didn't bother to mentally shove her away or rip the gun from her hand, as she knew he could.  
  
Gently, he touched the hand gripping the gun, easing it down from his face but never once taking his eyes off hers. "You're right, Lara," he said softly. "And I'm sorry."  
  
She was taken aback at the apology. Her shoulders slumped, the gun forgotten at her side, and Lara looked at him with eyes full of hurt. "Damnit, Kurtis," she whispered. "This should never have been my fight."  
  
Lara felt his hands rest gently on her shoulders.  
  
"I never meant for you to get dragged in, trust me. But you did, and I can't change that." He let her go, one hand trailing lightly down her arm. "You don't have to be alone in this. I left it all on your shoulders once, and I don't intend to put that burden on you again."  
  
Lara nodded, noticing his touch belatedly. Despite her usual discomfort with physical contact, she didn't quite mind it. For the first time in days Kurtis was looking at her with something other than disdain in his eyes, letting down the wall that had kept her at arm's length since the day they'd first come across each other. He had managed to get under her skin, chipped away at her own barriers, and it left her confused, with no idea how to react. So she dealt with it as she dealt with all uncomfortable situations–by ignoring it completely.  
  
"Do you think Karel is alive?" she asked, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had descended.  
  
"I know he is," Kurtis replied firmly. "Whatever you thought killed him might have hurt him, but he would have recovered. If it were that easy to kill a Nephilim, the Lux Veritatis would have done it a long time ago. I can't think of anyone else who would write that message, not with Eckhardt dead and the Cabal all but wiped out."  
  
"The message, could you...?"  
  
Taking the cue, Kurtis turned to a notepad laying on a nearby table and wrote out the translated message, then handed the paper to Lara. She stared at it, frowning, reading each line slowly and trying to decipher the hidden meaning that might be there. "Do you think he really had a reason to kill Laurent? Or was he just baiting us?"  
  
Kurtis shrugged. "Why bait us, though? You don't have anything he wants, not if the shards are already in his hands."  
  
"The Sanglyph," she said, whipping around to face Kurtis. "Do you think he's after the Sanglyph?"  
  
Kurtis's eyes lit up. "You have it?" He grabbed both her arms. "Woman, I could kiss you right now."  
  
"I'd rather you not," Lara replied with slight smile, though she was surprised to note the idea didn't entirely repulse her. _There's a time and place, Lara, and it's definitely not now._  
  
"Of course he's after it," Kurtis continued, pacing as he spoke. "The Nephilim only needed Eckhardt in the first place to help them make it; he was a means to an end. Whatever Karel is trying to accomplish, you just threw the biggest wrench possible in his plans. He can't do anything without the Blood Sign." He looked at her, still grinning. "Where is it now?"  
  
"Upstairs."  
  
Not waiting another minute, he strode from the apartment. Lara followed, taking care to close Sylvain's door firmly as they left, then taking the stairs two a time to catch up to Kurtis, who had already reached her apartment door. She led him down the hall to the bedroom and pulled her bag from under the bed, set it on the mattress, and unzipped it. The Sanglyph was on top of her clothes, wrapped tightly in an old shirt. She tugged the wrapping off to reveal the shining metal disc, still warm to the touch, and held it out to Kurtis, who immediately put up both hands and took a step back. "I can't touch it."  
  
"What? Why? What's wrong with it?" Somewhat worried that she was still holding it, Lara quickly set it back down.  
  
"It's part of the code. Should the Sanglyph be in Lux Veritatis hands, only the Grand Master or head Knights were permitted to handle the assembled Blood Sign, no one else. It was too dangerous." He stared at it with a nervous reverence. "I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. When it was locked away in pieces by the Order, we all thought that was the end of it."  
  
"And it was your Brother Obscura who hid it away?"  
  
"Yes, all five pieces."  
  
"Was he a Grand Master?"  
  
"No. His role was... a bit hard to explain." Kurtis seated himself on the bed beside the artifact, tense, his hands gripping the fabric of the damask duvet. Though he kept his distance, his eyes never left it. "He lived far longer than he should have, in the end, and probably would still be alive now if he hadn't spent so much time exposed to the pieces of the Blood Sign, studying it and then eventually hiding it. I suppose he was the Lux Veritatis answer to Eckhardt."  
  
"An alchemist?"  
  
He nodded. "Alchemist, blacksmith, gifted painter, sculptor, architect, all that and more. His had no official power in the Order, but no other brother or sister was as respected as him, and he was one of the few who could handle the Sanglyph in its pure form and not die outright from contact."  
  
"Pure form...is this not-...?"  
  
"No, otherwise you'd be very dead right now." Kurtis smiled at her, then reached back to pull the Chirugai from its place on his belt. "Brother Obscura was also the only one able to manipulate ferilium from mineral to weaponized form, like my Chirugai. And ferilium is the only thing – shards aside, of course – that can hurt the Nephilim. Purely superficial wounds, of course, but immensely painful from the looks of it."  
  
Before Lara could ask what ferilium was, he added, "I don't know where we got it, I just know it exists. Or existed. Most of those weapons are lost by now."  
  
"Impressive man. I suppose that's why he was interred beneath the Louvre? I can't imagine that sort of burial comes cheap."  
  
Kurtis stared.  
  
"You…you didn't know?"  
  
"Well, the painting, sure. I didn't realize the man himself was down there. Holy shit." Kurtis ran his fingers through his hair, chuckling softly to himself. "Well done."  
  
"So there was no Lux Veritatis involvement in the digs taking place?" Lara asked, re-wrapping the Sanglyph and tucking it back into her bag. "I would have thought so, considering what was buried down there. How would they know where to look?"  
  
"Who commissioned the dig?"  
  
Lara shrugged. "Margot Carvier was in charge of it, that's all I really know."  
  
Kurtis twirled the dogtags around his neck absentmindedly between his fingers, staring at the floor. Lara looked over his shoulder, toward the study window, where sun was already filtering in to brighten the room. Her mind went unwillingly to her dream the night before, and she shook her head sharply to clear it just as Kurtis looked back to her.  
  
"You okay?" he asked, eyebrow raised.  
  
"Yes, just tired," she murmured without meeting his eyes. "What are you thinking?"  
  
"I don't buy that Carvier would know to dig below the Louvre."  
  
"They've been doing excavations down there for years on the medieval ruins–"  
  
"Yeah, but to find that specific spot, out of all the places they could have been looking, the year that Eckhardt reappears and actively searches out the Obscura paintings?"  
  
Put that way, Lara agreed that it was unlikely. Coincidence could hardly account for finding the exact entrance to Brother Obscura's tomb after decades of studying the lower levels, especially not whilst Eckhardt was searching for the same. She leaned back on the bed, arms crossed. "Could von Croy have told her?"  
  
Kurtis considered it, then shook his head. "He was hired by Eckhardt to find the painting. I doubt Eckhardt told him where to look, otherwise why would he even need someone to find it? And if it was just a matter of retrieving it, why hire an elderly man who would have no hope of making it to the entrance, let alone through the tomb."  
  
She shrugged in response to his questioning glance. "Your guess is as good as mine. I never had time to look into any of the circumstances surrounding the dig. I was far more concerned with getting in and out before someone threw me in prison, or worse. _Where_ are you going with all this?"  
  
He looked at her, eyes lit up, perhaps the most animated she'd seen him in days. "Lara, someone had to have tipped them off about that dig, and it had to be someone from my Order. Someone who wanted the Sanglyph retrieved before Eckhardt could find it."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"That, I don't know." He stood, dropping the Chirugai back onto the hook on his belt. "But I know where to start."  
  
"And where would that be?"  
  
"The Louvre. See what Laurent and Carvier were up to that made them worth killing, and find out who got them mixed up in this mess."  
  
"I really don't think that's wise. I'm all over the security tapes and still a suspect-"  
  
Kurtis put a finger to her lips, cutting her off, and she nearly broke his finger in response; she had no tolerance for condescension. The last man who had patronized her had limped away with a bullet in his leg.  
  
"You," Kurtis said, his lips curling again into the smirk that she was growing so tired of, "are staying here, Ms. Croft."  
  
"I think not," she snapped, eyes narrowing. "I refuse to sit here and do nothing while Karel is out there slaughtering people."  
  
He ignored her scowl entirely."Too bad. I need to get into the Louvre to look around, and I was apparently the only one smart enough to make sure I stayed away from the cameras. There's no way you can set foot in that museum without being seen, and I need you _out_ of prison, especially if Karel is out there trying to find you. Right now you're off the grid, and this is the safest place for you."  
  
He was right, of course, despite how powerless it made her feel. And yet, she was never one to go down without a fight. "Fine," Lara said. "And just how do you propose to get in?"  
  
"Same way I did last time- hide out and wait for them to close."  
  
To that she smiled, a bit too sweetly for his taste.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I have a better idea."


End file.
